Guardian Born

by S. A. Moss

  He leered at me. I hated the smug look on his face and hated even more that he didn’t seem afraid of us at all. Fortunately, I had a solution for both of those things.

  I shot Alex a quick look. “Do it.”

  He nodded and squeezed Boss Man’s shoulders. I watched the wraith’s human face closely, hoping this worked.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Boss Man’s features contorted, and he twisted like a cat under Alex’s grip—until he felt the knife pressing deeper into his throat. Then he froze, looking up at Alex with wide eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. His voice was thinner and reedier than it had been before; as if the wraith’s true voice was coming through. “How—?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said sharply, drawing his gaze back to me. I wanted his attention off Alex.

  Boss Man snarled at me, panting like a dog on a hot day. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. “Live and learn, huh? Don’t worry, I won’t make the same mistake you did. Now tell your goons to let us go.”

  “Akaron will not stop. You can kill me, but you won’t stop him. The end of the Guardians is coming. You filth! I should’ve started with you!” He was practically screaming at me now.

  Suddenly, Boss Man stopped thrashing and his gaze cut to Alex. Sneering, he spoke softly in that eerie high-pitched voice. “The end of humans is coming too. When your precious Guardians are gone, you’ll take your rightful place as our slaves.”

  “Too bad you won’t be around to enjoy it, you sicko,” I gritted out and raised the knife.

  “Cam.”

  Behind me, my father’s voice was soft.

  I paused without conscious thought. Alex tried to catch my eye as I craned my neck to face my dad.

  He’d taken a few steps away from the door. His expression was still a mask, but he looked almost sad.

  Then he raised his hands. And for the first time, I noticed the slight glow of an aura surrounding him. I’d been so shocked by his sudden appearance before that I hadn’t seen it.

  No! What the hell? How is this possible?

  Time seemed to slow down as my father unleashed a blast of energy toward us. In that stretchy, hazy half-second, I realized two things.

  One—my father was a supernatural.

  And, two—he was most definitely not on our side.

  37

  Then time stretched the other way, moving so fast I didn’t even have time to generate a shield to block my dad’s attack.

  Instead, I leapt up and threw myself at Alex, wrapping myself around him. The impact of my body made him stagger back, just before the full brunt of my father’s blast brought us both down. My vision went fuzzy from the pain, and Alex’s back hit the ground with a painful sounding smack.

  “Are you… okay?” I forced out.

  He nodded. I could feel him sucking air into his lungs beneath me.

  I staggered to my feet. Every muscle and bone in my body blazed with agony, but I pushed the pain down as I turned to face my father. Our eyes met, and for a moment, he hesitated. Some internal battle waged behind his stoic expression, but I had no idea what it was—or which part of him would win.

  I didn’t wait to find out.

  Raising both hands, I unleashed a blast of energy toward him. He gestured, and a shield materialized to block my strike. I threw another, and another, forcing him to take a defensive stance. If I could keep him distracted fighting me, he wouldn’t be able to attack Alex.

  Keeping my focus on my dad’s chest, I drove him backward with my blows. I couldn’t look at his eyes while I leveled my attack—couldn’t let myself remember this was my dad.

  But I couldn’t forget it, either.

  All the anger, confusion, and loss that had been building up in my chest for the past twelve years exploded out of me, as if the aether around me was gasoline and my rage was the match.

  My dad hit the low wall the surrounded the perimeter of the roof and stumbled, grabbing onto it for support. I raised my hands to level another blast at him, when a shout behind me froze my blood.

  “Cam! Watch Alex!”

  Pearl’s voice was breathless and panicked, and I whipped my head around.

  Boss Man hauled Alex to his feet, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and forcing him to walk backward toward the hole in the roof where the skylight had been. Alex’s foot caught the lip of the empty skylight, and I gasped. Shit! Even if he turned Boss Man mortal, that wouldn’t stop the wraith from throwing him off the ledge.

  Abandoning my attack on my father, I raced across the roof.

  But before I could reach them, Alex shifted his weight. In a move almost too fast for me to track, he twisted to the side, pulling Boss Man off balance and using the bigger man’s forward momentum to shove him over the edge.

  With a keening cry, Boss Man’s meat-puppet body disappeared through the gaping hole.

  In the silence that followed, I realized the DJ had stopped spinning. For a moment, all fighting on the roof paused as we stared down into the club. Boss Man’s body lay at an odd angle on a pile of glass shards.

  As we watched, it began to twitch. But I knew it wasn’t the body itself moving—it was the wraith slowly beginning to pull itself free of its dead human host. Once it got out, it’d be able to fade out and escape.

  “He’s going to get away!” I whispered to Alex in a panic.

  “No, he isn’t,” Alex said grimly. Before I could ask him what he meant, he backed up several paces then sprinted forward and leapt off the roof. Holy shit!

  Alex’s arms pinwheeled as he fell, barely catching the railing of the spiral staircase in the middle of the dance floor. His body slammed into the outside of the stairs, but he wrapped his arms around the railing and hauled himself onto the stairs.

  Oh, damn.

  Alex raced down the small spiral steps, and I threw up a series of shields to protect him as he ran.

  The twitching wraith was almost entirely extricated from its human host, crawling away from the broken body. Reaching it, Alex didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the creature’s head, and a high-pitched screech worse than a roomful of angry cats rose up into the night. Then Alex snapped its head to the side, and the sound cut off abruptly.

  The skeletal body of the wraith fell limply to the floor.

  Next to me, a demon with a slit for a nose and razor-sharp teeth howled. My father, however, was flicking his gaze between the wraith’s corpse and Alex.

  “No… Not another one. Not like Rose,” he muttered, so low I almost didn’t hear him. Pearl glanced at my dad, her body tensing, but I ignored him.

  I backed up to follow Alex’s lead—I wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to catch the railing, but one way or another I had to make it down to his level before the demons attacked again.

  But as I sprinted forward, my dad wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms by my side and sweeping me off my feet. He spoke into my ear. “Enough, Camille. I can’t let you continue to meddle in this. You’ve already set us back too much.”

  “Let me go, you bastard!” I shrieked, kicking and twisting, trying to pull my arms out of his iron grip.

  “No. Come with me, and I’ll explain everything.” My father’s voice was calm and commanding. “Cohort. Fall back!” he called out, and the Fallen on the roof began fading out.

  And then I felt myself fading too.

  “Cam!” Pearl shrieked.

  It wasn’t of my own volition, but it was happening nonetheless. My mind flashed back to the demon Pearl and I had fought together. We’d forced it back into the Shroud. Was my father doing the same thing to me?

  I renewed my struggles against him, wriggling and screaming. I tried with all my might to stop the fading feeling, to anchor myself in this world. But it did no good. I could feel my essence spreading, evaporating.

  Pearl’s eyes widened, and she suddenly darted forward, snatching my hand with both of hers. I could feel he
r trying to force me to fade in, and I redoubled my efforts until finally I coalesced, slamming back into the earthly plane. My father’s grip on me loosened, and I pushed away from him, spinning to face him as he continued to fade out.

  The man before me was almost unrecognizable. Anger twisted his features, and eyes that had once looked at me lovingly were now hard as glass. But there was something else in his expression—fear?

  “This is not over, Camille,” he said grimly.

  Then he was gone.

  38

  Police lights flashed red and blue in the pink light of dawn. As we stepped out of the club with the last of the human stragglers, I glanced down at myself. Sarah’s cute blue top was torn in several places, and I had dried blood smeared across my torso, shoulder, and skirt. My hand was still caked in it. My own injuries had healed as if they never existed—although the pain when I’d been struck was real enough—but I was still a complete mess.

  As soon as my father had disappeared, the rest of the Fallen had faded across to the Shroud too.

  Part of me wanted to go after them, but I couldn’t leave Alex. And I knew it’d probably be a hopeless mission. My dad had tried to take me over. He wanted me there. And if I showed up in the Shroud, especially without any backup of my own, I’d likely end up stuck there. We were lucky to have gotten out of Paradise at all. I didn’t think another encounter with that many Fallen—and my father—would end as well.

  My brain still refused to process the version of my dad I’d met inside the club. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Physically, he was just like I remembered—which made sense, if he was a supernatural. He hadn’t physically aged at all since I’d last seen him.

  But besides his physical appearance, almost nothing else about him squared with the man I’d known as a child. The man who had told me a single, long bedtime story spread out over hundreds of sleepy evenings. The one who would put a random object on his head and pretend it was a hat, just to make me laugh. Who would sometimes walk into a room, dip my mom so low she was practically horizontal, and kiss her without regard for my fake gagging noises.

  Those things were so human, so silly and lighthearted and kind; I couldn’t make them fit into who he’d become. I couldn’t imagine the man I’d seen today wearing my shoe on his head, although twelve years ago I had seen that exact thing. What had happened to him?

  As police stormed into the building, we blended with the throng of club-goers outside for a minute, then broke away from them to head quickly down the street. Walking between my two companions, I tilted my head and stole a glance at Alex. He was limping slightly, but otherwise looked okay.

  He really was a badass.

  Sure, I’d been bitten by a demon, sliced by an energy blast, and had taken several hits that would’ve broken most of my bones if I were human. But the skin had already closed, the wounds a distant memory by now. He’d taken some pretty serious hits too, although I’d done my best to protect him. And here he was, walking down the street with two immortals like it was no big deal.

  My subtle glance had become more like a stare, and he caught me, grinning when I looked away quickly.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “A little banged up, but I’ll live.”

  “I thought you were afraid of heights?” I immediately regretted the question. He’d told me that the night he tried to get me to reveal myself, and every time I mentioned something I shouldn’t know about him but did, he got all awkward and cold.

  Instead, Alex smiled, his bright green eyes warm. “Oh, I definitely am. Terrified.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” I said, grinning back like an idiot. Hope bloomed in my chest at the expression on his face. The dimples popped out on his cheeks as he smiled wider.

  But my giddy mood was broken when Pearl spoke up. “Who is Rose?” she asked softly.

  I swallowed. “She’s… my mom.”

  Pearl gasped, and Alex turned his head to study me. “And the tall guy was really your dad?” His voice was hard.

  “Yup.”

  Pearl’s eyes widened. “That was your father?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he’s a supernatural?”

  I shook my head. “I… I guess so. He and my mom both disappeared when I was eight. I spent years looking for them, but could never find anything. One private detective was finally able to get a clue, but he was killed by a wraith. So I guess someone didn’t want me finding my dad.”

  Pearl grasped my arm gently. “I’m sorry, Cam. I know you thought perhaps he’d been captured by the Fallen. This seems worse somehow.”

  “Maybe he was captured!” I argued. “Maybe they’re making him help them. He never told me where my mom is. Maybe they have her and are using her as leverage!”

  “Perhaps.” Pearl nodded but avoided my eyes.

  I sighed. She seemed skeptical of that theory, and honestly, so was I.

  That look in my father’s eyes. The expression on his face. The way he talked to Boss Man. He didn’t look like someone who was being forced to act. He looked like a man with a mission.

  I’d spent years convinced that finding my parents would fill in the missing parts of me—that if I knew who they’d become, I’d know better who I was. But I had never, ever imagined I would find my dad helping the Fallen plot against Guardians, against humanity.

  Was that who I was? That was the missing piece of me?

  A large black SUV limo drove around the corner, pulling up next to us. I tensed. Oh shit. Maybe my father had come back for me already.

  The front passenger window rolled down, and Owen stuck his head out. Even though it was a large car, his body seemed crammed into the space. My jaw dropped at the sight of him.

  “Owen! What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you three. Get in.”

  The back door opened, revealing Sada, Adele, and Arcadius. I’d never seen anything more incongruous than these four Council members piled into an SUV. A Guardian I didn’t know sat behind the wheel.

  I hesitated. “You’re letting a human see you? But what about—?”

  Adele spoke up, her voice cold. “I think it’s a little late for keeping our presence a secret from him, don’t you? You’ve seen to that.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I gave Alex a shrug and gestured that we should climb inside. He did, eyeing the five Guardians in the car with curiosity.

  Arcadius fixed me with a stern stare as the driver pulled away from the curb. “What happened? We sent Pearl to warn you about the Fallen attacks, and the next thing we know, we’re hearing reports that police found supernatural corpses at a nightclub. How is that possible?”

  I shared a quick glance with Pearl. I knew she’d gone out on a limb helping me. None of what we’d done was Council approved, and from the sound of things we were going to have to do a whole lot of begging for forgiveness since we had most definitely not asked for permission.

  “Pearl came and found Alex and me last night. She warned me about the Fallen attacks and helped me take care of the ones that were after us. Alex helped. I know I wasn’t supposed to let him see me. But it’s a good thing I did, because we need him. Those dead demons? The dead wraith? He did that.”

  Arcadius’s gaze shot to Alex. “What do you mean?”

  “He can make immortal creatures mortal. I stabbed those demons, and they died. Died died.”

  “It’s true,” Pearl piped up. “He did it to me. Well, not the stabbing part, but he did make me mortal. It was incredible.” She sighed wistfully.

  The Council all exchanged serious looks. Owen twisted around to face us from the front seat. “Are you serious? Arcadius, this could change everything!”

  Adele didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic. She cleared her throat, pinning me with a glare. “So you decided to ignore every directive we gave you, taking the human you were supposed to be protecting into a fight the Fallen, and leaving nonhuman bodies for the human police to find?”

  “Y
es!” I snapped. “And you should be glad I did. I’m sorry we didn’t ask you if it was all right first, but if we’d waited for you to get back to the Haven, we might’ve missed our chance. We were trying to get information about what’s being done to the Guardians. One of the major players in all of this was a wraith inhabiting a human body, and he ran that club.”

  “And did you?” She sniffed. “Get information?”

  I bristled, not liking her tone. “We got some. First of all, we know there’s a plan to capture all Guardians, or as many as they can get anyway. The Fallen want to be able to live on Earth, and they seem to think the key to doing that is to remove Guardians from the picture. The wraith we killed was answering to someone named Akaron, but I don’t know who he is.”

  Adele’s lip curled. “That is very little information we didn’t already know.”

  My temper flared. “Listen, I—!”

  “Adele.” Arcadius’s voice was quiet but firm. “Be fair. That’s more than we knew a few moments ago. What’s happening here is unprecedented. I may not be happy about how Cam came by the information she has, but I’m not sorry we have it. We lost far too many Guardians last night. We need all the help we can get finding them.” He turned to me, his sharp features serious. “What else did you learn, Cam?”

  His trust made a warm feeling spread in my chest at the same time nerves tightened my stomach. I gulped. He had offered up his trust. Now it was my turn to do the same. I needed to tell them everything.

  With shaking fingers, I dug my dad’s picture out of my bra where I’d stashed it. I had carried it with me every day since I’d found it, and I hadn’t wanted to leave it behind at Sarah’s place. Now I kind of wanted to burn it. Instead, I held it out to the members of the Council. “I found out that this man… that my dad is working for Akaron. I don’t know how it’s possible, but he’s a supernatural.”

  Adele squinted at the picture, an impatient scowl twisting her features.

  Then she gasped.

  39