Darkness in the Blood (Gifted Blood Trilogy)

by Vicki Keire

  “And you don’t.”

  “No way. Bugs and sleeping on the ground. Scary noises in the dark.” I looked at him, this remarkable creature next to me in the darkness. He’d never been camping. He’d never been to school, or gotten in trouble with his parents, or done something dangerous because it felt good. Since meeting me, his life had been consumed with protecting my brother or myself. Then life as he’d known it had changed forever, and we were all still trying to pick up the pieces.

  I wondered suddenly what he would look like by fire light, if the sharp contrast between flickering light and dark would make him look less mortal, more ethereal.

  A rough palm cupped my jaw. “When you look at me like that,” Ethan said, brushing my lower lip with the pad of his thumb, “it makes me crazy. On almost every level.” He slid my plate from my unresisting hands, even though I was only half finished. I didn’t protest. “I almost lost you tonight.”

  “They were working for someone else.” I felt ancient and weighted down. Facing Ethan’s concern took way more energy that it should have. “Someone told them where Nic and Amelie were, in exchange for bringing me to him. Whoever wants me can’t come here himself. So he sent them, the summer people.” Suddenly I couldn’t stand the things I saw in his over bright eyes; fear and love and possession clawed through my abdomen until I doubled over, ashamed and afraid. “I brought them here.” I whispered. “And now no place is safe anymore.”

  “No you didn’t.” There was nothing soft about the way he held me. “They came for Amelie. You were just the catalyst. If whoever is stealing gifted Nephilim has to send others in his place, then Whitfield is the safest place you could possibly be.”

  “But why?” I wailed. “Why me? Why now? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not now.” Ethan smoothed back my hair, held me closer. “Not tonight, ok? I just got you back. Tomorrow, ok? We’ll worry more tomorrow.”

  I snapped my mouth shut as he took our plates to the kitchen. “Ok, but I insist on a distraction.” I ran for my bedroom. “We need supplies. A flashlight, marshmallows, and two dining room chairs.”

  He tried to sneak a look into my room. “Are feeling all right? Maybe you should lie down. You did have a pretty nasty experience tonight.”

  “No! Really, I’m fine. Just get the stuff.”

  “Ok,” he said doubtfully, but he left me alone. After several minutes of rummaging in the cluttered mess under my bed and arranging sheets and candles, I looked over my fake campsite. It was, of course, completely pathetic. An old sheet sagged across two straight-backed chairs in a sad imitation of a tent. But I had managed to find the old plug-in planetarium. Fake stars rolled across my ceiling.

  “Come in!” I yelled at last.

  He gestured at the slowly spiraling dots of light. “I got the marshmallows. Can I join you?”

  I made room for him beside my impromptu candle-fire. I balanced the bag of marshmallows on our knees, which touched. “We’re lucky we have clear skies,” I said, biting the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. He didn’t even crack a smile. In fact, he looked nervous. Really nervous. “Ethan?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

  My carpet was white with a kind of black abstract pattern on it. Beyond the tiny circle of candlelight, it looked gray. Everything did, except for Ethan. He slipped a flat rectangular box into my hands. “I keep waiting for the right moment. But then it hit me that maybe there never will be a right moment and I should just, I don’t know. Give it to you. So here. It should fit. I, uh. I’ve been taking measurements…”

  The flat rectangular box was a dusky purple color. It could only have come form one place, then. “You went to the Hollow,” I said, running one thumb over its satiny surface. “You had this made? Custom made? For me?” There were only a handful of businesses in the odd little community hidden away just outside the city limits. And only one of them made jewelry. Jacob Eden was a silversmith, as his father had been before him. Like most residents of the Hollow, he was fiercely independent and quite a bit strange, even by Whitfield standards. He only worked when he felt like it or needed money. That made his creations extra valuable. I couldn’t believe I held one in my hands.

  “Yes,” he said, watching me anxiously. “I took your old watch out to Jacob’s to use for measurements. It was Jacob’s idea that they be snug. I mean, the overall design was mine, but he modified some things.” He trailed off uncertainly.

  “You had Jacob the Silversmith hand-make something for me?” I repeated, staring at the box as if it might bite.

  Ethan was in agony. “Would you just open it already?” He held it between us, and we both stared into the box as if it held something spooky that might escape.

  I nudged off the lid. “Oh, Ethan,” I said. My heart felt as heavy as if it had suddenly decided to take up bricklaying. “This… this is some serious jewelry.” I held two long pieces of delicate silver loops and whorls, held together with crystal and silver links. They looked like sun hitting water as it skipped over the limestone rock formations in the mountains. Two silver bracelets, three inches wide, they looked more like intricate wrist cuffs than proper bracelets. Ethan’s hands trembled slightly as he hooked the clasps together. When they were both firmly attached, I just sat staring. I think maybe he misinterpreted my silence because he started babbling.

  “You don’t have to wear them if you don’t like them. You can just keep them as a reminder.” He turned an awkward shade of red. “Guys are supposed to be terrible at this kind of thing. I’ve had even less practice than most, so if you don’t like them, I understand.”

  I traced the clasps with my fingers. The silver wire formed a loop that resembled an abstract wing right over my pulse point. “They make wings,” I said, still not looking at him. There was one wing for each wrist.

  “Yes.” Ethan was acutely uncomfortable now; I could hear it in his voice. “I know that’s not truly what wings look like, but I couldn’t come up with another way to represent them. Like I said, you don’t have to wear them.” He sounded miserable. When I snuck a look at him, tearing myself away from the most amazing gift I’d ever been given, he sat hunched in on himself. “They’re silver, like your eyes. I got one for each wrist. I thought,” his shoulders settled with a defeated sigh. “I thought maybe if you could see them when the Shadows came, you might not be so afraid.” This last in a whisper.

  “Oh,” I breathed. I could barely speak. It amazed me, how much he saw. I tried so hard to hide my fears: of the Shadows, of the darkness that lived inside me. He saw all this, and wasn’t afraid. “They’re amazing,” I whispered, launching myself into his lap. “They’re the most amazing present anyone’s ever given me. I’m never ever taking them off.”

  “Well.” He looked pleased as he kept me from knocking the both of us over and settled me more evenly in his lap. “That’s good then, right?”

  “Yes,” I murmured, tucking myself into the space beneath his chin. “Of course.”

  “He asked about you. Jacob.” Ethan was embarrassed again. “He said he needed to know things if he was going to make you something pretty. ‘Women are particular when it comes to presents like that,’ he told me.” Ethan looked bemused, but also a little awed. “Jacob said that the trick of jewelry was knowing it was like saying, ‘I’m making a promise and giving it shape through metal and stone.’”

  “Is that what he said?” I asked, running my fingers over the silver whorls and links. “Jacob with the ponytail and pipe said that?”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t think it to look at him.” Ethan turned my other wrist. “All those Hollow folks kind of freaked me out, to tell you the truth. There was a weird kind of energy around the place, a shifting light and low humming sound, like magic but not as disorienting. It was maddening.”

  “The Hollow is a weird kind of place,” I agreed. “And Jacob really only makes jewelry if he feels like it. How did you afford this?” The candlelight caught the dozens of tiny crystal facets and bounced th
e light off the ceiling, making the poor plastic substitute of my elementary school planetarium seem pathetic in comparison. “You must have been saving since…”

  “Since I first got a job?” He held my hands wrists up, so that he could see the wing-shaped clasps. A single fingertip slipped through one to touch my pulse point there. My eyes widened at the sensation; I could see them flare brilliant silver in Ethan’s irises. He smiled. His hand found mine in the dim light. For a moment both of us watched the candle flame and the tiny dots of slowly moving light overhead. “I’ve never been camping before. I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Yes, well, you can see we’re really roughing it,” I said drily. “Here we have our candle flame camp fire. We use it to roast marshmallows, tell scary stories, and keep away vicious beasts.”

  “Such as the ruthless Abigail?”

  “Exactly,” I laughed.

  “And the flashlight?”

  I waved it dramatically under my chin. “Ghost stories, of course.” I made a face. “Or for protection when your brother jumps out at you on your way to the bathroom.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think it will be quite so scary tonight.”

  I fingered the silver of one of my bracelets, feeling the loops press into my skin. “Me neither.”

  After carefully extinguishing our ‘fire,’ we lay on our backs, half of us under our sheet-tent. I kept one hand on my new bracelet and one hand in Ethan’s as we silently watched the stars spin by. I rolled on my side, facing him. “Thank you,” I said, tracing the silver loops. “No one’s ever given me something so beautiful before.”

  He ran a finger over mine. “It’s funny. When I first came to you, I had no concept of things like money. And now…” he trailed off, a satisfied smile on his face. “Well. I couldn’t wait to buy you these.”

  “Don’t you miss it?” I asked him softly. I’d asked him that same question many times since I found him, shivering and human, outside my apartment. We both knew by now it was a question that masked many others: Do you have regrets? Do you blame me? Are you happy?

  “Don’t you mind having a boring human boyfriend?” he asked in return. Another layered question, hiding others: Am I less to you, now that I’m mortal? Do you blame yourself? Do you come to me out of love or obligation?

  But they were questions too big to be answered. We could only hold each other, and try to reassure. We handled each other like newly blown glass, and every touch was a streak of fire. Before when he kissed me my skin burned from the contact, layers of me literally stripped away. Now, at last, there was no need to hold back, no danger of a thoughtless deadly injury. Yet still we were careful with each other. Maybe everyone who has come so close to losing the other half is as careful. Maybe we were just fearful and learning, but we couldn’t stand not to touch, as if letting go might mean the other of us would disappear, or we might wake up and find we’d dreamed each other up after all.

  Ethan braced himself on his elbows. I loved his longer hair, the way it never stayed neat, no matter how many times he brushed it. I messed it up even more, so that his entire face was in shadow. All I could see was his silhouette outlined against the light dot stars, and a hint of blue green glow from his eyes. I trailed my fingers down to rest against his heart, and then fanned them out across his back, where planes of brilliant light had once protected me and marked him as immortal.

  “Sshh,” he said, rolling so that he lay on his side and pulled me into him. I realized I was crying. “Hey now. You’re ruining our campout. What’s wrong?”

  I clutched at his back. “It’s just…” I sobbed into his bare shoulder. “I know it hurts. In your sleep, you talk about them.”

  He stroked my hair, the back of my neck. “You know how you can see wings as planes of lights? Doors, or portals, to the Realms? Not feathers, like everyone else?” I nodded. His voice had a soothing effect. “There’s nothing to miss, Caspia. Not like a limb, because it was never there. It’s more like a door is shut that used to be open. Like I’ve lost the way home.” I burst into fresh tears. “No, no. It’s not forever. There are more ways to the Realms that just one, Caspia. All humans find their way back eventually. And so will we. Nothing’s gone forever.”

  Right before sleep claimed me, I managed to attach myself to his bare back, my arms wrapped around his. I pressed myself against him, hoping my heart beat, poor substitute though it was, might somehow make up for his lost way home.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Azalene

  “Hey.” A rough shake jostled me awake. “Hey, get up. We don’t have much time.”

  I’m not an easy to wake kind of person. Usually, it takes many cups of coffee. The unfortunate person who actually has pre-coffee contact with me has, more than once, stopped speaking to me for days. But not this time. I awoke immediately, filled with an unfamiliar energy bordering on euphoria. I had no desire to close my eyes and roll over. Instead, I sat bolt upright from my place on the floor.

  Then I jumped to my feet and backpedaled wildly, trying hard not to scream.

  In the middle of the make shift tent of sheets and dining room chairs, I lay deeply asleep, curled around Ethan, who had rolled over on his back during the night. He had his arm around me. It should have looked sweet and touching.

  Instead, we looked more than a bit like corpses.

  That’s when I saw the tattooed boy.

  “It’s ok.” He slipped up beside me. We both gave off the same faint blue glow. “You’re dreaming. Everything’s fine.”

  “Uh, no. Everything is very much not fine. This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered, horrified. I managed to drag my gaze away from my lifeless body to confront the guy who’d ‘woken’ me and started all this. I wanted to demand answers, to know why he kept showing up, half-naked, in my dreams. I wanted to sound tough and unafraid. “Don’t you even own a shirt?” I heard myself say instead.

  I couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but it was obvious he was laughing at me. “I told you last time I’d come back. And yes, I own several.” He wore the same black pants as he had the night I dreamed of him in my living room, playing my brother’s records. His arms and chest were still decorated with strange tattoos. As I watched, the lines of them shimmered against the faint blue glow we both gave off in the dream. Their dark liquid ink edges looked alive. They moved ever so slightly, as if they had a pulse.

  “What are they?” I asked, fascinated in spite of myself by the symbols that seemed to live just beneath his skin.

  “A way of controlling the Shadows- of channeling and amplifying them. They’re one of the few things that give mixed bloods an edge in a fight. Nephilim can’t bear them. Their stone skin can’t take the marks. It’s why I don’t like to cover them up in potential combat situations.”

  “There’s a way to control Shadows?” My hands ached with cold, electric fire. “How?” I breathed. “I’m not a getting a bunch of tattoos, or walking around without a shirt,” I warned.

  “You’re hilarious.”

  I thought of a million sarcastic replies. Instead, I asked, “Is your name Jack, like the newspaper article said?”

  He looked surprised. “Yes, I’m Jack.” He snorted. “I can’t believe I made the paper. Dad would have a fit.”

  “How did you learn to control them? Is there someone like us who taught you?”

  He spun and walked away from me. From my bedroom window, he said, “There are no others exactly like us. Not anymore. There are others with gifted blood, though.” He half-turned to me in the moonlight, and I remembered how Ethan stood there, months ago, and told me I was wobbly for a human.

  How the world had changed. As if hearing my thoughts, Ethan stirred restlessly in our make believe tent. Jack stared at him intently, almost as if he recognized him. It wasn’t a friendly look.

  “The Shadows. How many others can call them?” I skirted my own sleeping body. I would force an answer if necessary.

  “Just the two of us no
w.” He flashed me a bitter smile. “We’re the last of the Azalene warriors.”

  “The last who?” I echoed, baffled.

  He looked at me, surprised. “The last of Azazel’s line? Azazel, of the First Fallen?” Whatever he saw on my face must have convinced him I wasn’t faking ignorance.

  “What is an Azazel?” I repeated, fisting my hands against my rising anger.

  “Easy there,” he cautioned, taking my hands. “You need to work on emotional control. It’s the first step towards controlling your gift.”

  “My…” I started to say. Suddenly we were in the park, right in front of the fountain, brilliantly lit up for night. I yanked my hands out of his. He watched me, assessing, then shrugged. He leapt up so that he balanced on the very edge of the fountain. A multi-colored light outlined him in rapidly shifting colors. “We’re a dying people, Caspia,” he said. His bare toes gripped the stone effortlessly. “Our gifts are weakened, or skip generations. Most of us have only one. You and I are different, though.” I didn’t like the look he gave me. I couldn’t figure it out. He acted as if he didn't like me at all, yet here he was, explaining things to me. “You can draw the future. I can Dreamwalk. But more importantly, both of us can fight.”

  “Fight,” I repeated. He watched me carefully.

  “Fight,” he affirmed. “You haven’t seen the fat bald man with the sword around, have you?”

  I tried to shove him into the fountain. “Don’t make fun of me,” I warned.

  He wouldn’t let go of my arm when I shoved, and as a result, I almost went into the fountain with him. “I’m not,” he sighed. “Here’s the story. We think roughly two hundred angels were the first to take human wives and start families here on earth,” he said, releasing me as if I hadn’t just tried to drown him. “They knew things primitive man wasn’t supposed to know yet. When they had children, they couldn’t stand by and watch them struggle in ignorance. And so they taught them this forbidden knowledge. One of them, Azazel,” he nodded his head at me. “Taught his children how to fight. He taught them how to make blades, and how to fight with what we call Shadows, pulled from the Dark Realms. And then, when his beloved died, as all mortals must, he made one last special blade.”