Darkness in the Blood (Gifted Blood Trilogy)

by Vicki Keire

  If anyone had any, they were lost to me as I laid my head against the cool hard surface and focused on not passing out. Papers rattled around me. I refused to take one of his damned packets. I wouldn’t be taking that test. I was dropping this class as soon as I could. Hesitant fingers stroked my hair, pushing it back from my forehead.

  “Caspia?” Amberlyn sounded as if she spoke from underwater. “Can you hear me?” More rattling papers. “I got your packet for you. It’s in your knapsack. Talk to me, hon.”

  “Can’t,” I managed. Cold. I was so cold. I kept picturing the dark haired woman, pleading for her life before an angel with a flaming sword. An angel with wings like planes of Light, not feathers. An angel like Ethan had been, not that long ago.

  I had dark hair. I could make Shadows like the woman in the painting.

  Why hadn’t Ethan told me?

  Is this what Asheroth meant about war coming to Whitfield? Was it happening again? I clung to my desk as waves of nausea and fear and sorrow rocked me.

  “Are you unwell, Miss Chastain? I was so very looking forward to talking with you in my office. Remember?” His voice rolled over me like a cold fog that deepened into a kind of spreading numbness until all I could do was lay there like a beached jellyfish. “Gather her things, Amberlyn. It’s time she came with me anyway.”

  Numb. Freezing. I couldn’t move. I must move. I hated this man. He was going to take me. He knew about Nephilim, he called us abominations, Nephilim descendents were disappearing, and he was going to take me. Realization, when it hit me, was the coldest sensation yet.

  Oh, Ethan. Why did you have to fall in love with someone who was so very, very stupid?

  Why had I not known?

  Why had he waited so long?

  “Take her where, Dr. Christian?” Amberlyn sounded like a zombified version of herself. I wanted to scream at her, to plead with her, but I couldn’t. No parts of me worked except the silent ones, the places in my brain shrieking soundlessly with fear and rage. “I don’t think she’s feeling very well.”

  “She’s fine, Amberlyn.” His voice was very soft, very convincing. “We’ll just have a nice little talk here for a moment, then. I can make certain no one disturbs us.”

  “Oh…kay,” Amberlyn agreed in a puzzled monotone, but to me, it was the sound of a trap snapping shut.

  Then he laid his hand across my neck, and ancient Shadows stirred the darkness in my blood.

  Almost as if he could hear my fears, Dr. Christian patted me absently. “An associate of mine has been waiting to meet you for a very long time, Caspia. He’ll be so pleased when I bring you to him.”

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The Devil You Know

  I don’t think Dr. Christian had ever touched me. Not skin on skin, anyway. But when he slid his palm across the sensitive nerve endings of my neck, it was as if the two of us stood alone together in a very dark room. I could feel him, a dark energy, invading me, testing me.

  I was still pinned to my desk.

  I didn’t know it was possible to sob in my head, but it was, and I did.

  “What did you think of today’s lesson?” he asked out loud.

  “What?” Amberlyn sounded startled. “Oh, um, it was kind of intense. Evil half-breeds trying to bring down Heaven.” She laughed nervously. “Dr. Christian? Is Caspia going to be ok?”

  No! I thought furiously.

  His thumb pressed down hard on the tendons at the base of my neck. If I’d been able, I would have whimpered. It hurt. When I tried again to reach for the Shadows, they slipped just out of my reach, as if a net of numbing power had slipped under my skin. “I’m going to release you,” he said calmly, almost politely, as if we were sitting down to tea. “Just enough to talk.” His hand slipped from my neck and I could move again. I sat up so quickly all the blood rushed to my head. I ignored it, though, and tried to push myself to my feet and run.

  I couldn’t. My body stayed glued firmly to my desk. He shook his perfect blond head in mock disappointment. “Surely you didn’t think me that stupid?”

  “What are you?” I asked when I discovered my vocal cords could work again. “A demon?”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “To be a demon, one must first be an angel. No, I am nothing like that. Nothing immortal or,” his perfect lips twisted on the word, “unnatural. All you need to know is that I am powerful, and that the entity that wants you shares a common enemy with me.” He lounged backwards in the tiny auditorium chair like it was a plush sofa. A brief flash of too-white teeth disturbed me. I wondered if it was meant to pass for a smile. “He wants me to talk to you, Caspia.”

  “Why?” I watched as Amberlyn slipped quietly into a chair next to Dr. Christian. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, staring off into space. “What’s the point?”

  “Did you expect me to hit you over the head and drag you away?” Dr. Christian leaned forward. His eyes narrowed, transforming his whole face into something sharp and hungry. “I am actually trying to reason with you, you stupid girl. He remains convinced you will come to him of your own free will, if you just hear the right argument.” My shock must have been plain, because Dr. Christian snorted and leaned away. “Yes, exactly. I agree with you about this little conversation. It was a lost cause before it began, but Belial is not someone you say no to.”

  “Belial?” I rolled the name on my tongue, memorizing it.

  “Yes.” His eyes were blue fire. “Belial. I’ll spell it if you need me to. Belial. A Rebel angel.”

  “A demon, you mean,” I challenged.

  He lounged backwards again. His expensive Italian leather shoe came perilously close to kicking Amberlyn. She didn’t seem to notice. “I told him this would be pointless.”

  “Don’t you hurt her,” I warned. I put as much venom into my voice as I could, since I couldn’t actually stop him at the moment.

  He barely glanced at the perfectly still Amberlyn. “I won’t hurt her,” he said impatiently. “I can’t. The Compact between Light and Dark forbids it.”

  I waited for his words to make sense. They didn’t. “The what?” I asked.

  He looked as if I’d given him a present. “They haven’t told you? It’s only Whitfield’s most important supernatural law. And they don’t trust you with it?” I didn’t let him see my curiosity or my disappointment. Because no, no one had told me. I’d heard Cassandra mention something about it in passing, but that was all. He smiled, drumming his long fingers on my desk. “Simple, really. It’s an oath not to harm mortals and innocents. It’s what allows us to live together in relative peace. We can neither harm those citizens who don’t know of our existence, nor engage in attacks on each other that would hurt them or the town.” His long tapping fingers moved to my immobile arms. One of them caressed the back of my hand. Immediately, a frisson of cold power pulsed through me.

  “But look what you’ve done to Amberlyn,” I protested. “And you’re going to harm me, I’m pretty damn sure, if you’re going to hand me over to a demon and the Dark Realms.”

  “Amberlyn hasn’t been harmed,” he corrected smoothly. I watched as he turned to her and pulled gently on one of her springy loose curls. She just sat and stared off into the distance. “She won’t remember any of this. As for you, I won’t be doing any of the hurting. I’m merely delivering you out of the city limits. And even if I were to develop a desire to,” he smiled again, like an eager, hungry cat, “hurt you, the Compact doesn’t prohibit that. All kinds of supernaturals live here, some of us with long histories of animosity towards each other, both personal and otherwise. Naturally, tensions erupt between us sometimes. As long as the town in general, and innocents in specific aren’t caught up in the cross fire, this rarely becomes a problem.”

  “So you’re telling me,” I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around this new information, “that my whole life, supernatural mini wars have been going on all around me, and I haven’t even know about it?” I heard my voice climb at the end, surprising even
me. Why hadn’t someone told me?

  “You are right to feel anger,” Dr. Christian said in an eerie echo of my own thoughts. “It would have taken so little to enlighten you. One sentence. Perhaps two. And yet, none of your so-called friends or protectors saw fit to do so. What else are they keeping from you, Caspia?” I dropped my eyes to my frozen arms. I wouldn’t think of that now. I would think about getting away from this man, and then I would see about getting some questions answered. “Perhaps they’ve even been lying about Belial, the war, and the Dark Realms,” he said softly.

  “Now that I just can’t believe,” I snapped. “I’ve seen the evidence for myself. He’s kidnapping gifted children, for God’s sake. What kind of monster does that?”

  “One who wants to keep them safe,” Dr. Christian answered softly. “Not everyone can live here, in this sheltered valley, Caspia. Belial may be taking them, but other forces are killing them. Which is better? And since he’s forbidden from coming here himself, what other choice does he have, really?” He shrugged, an elegant gesture that looked oddly out of place on him. “If the Guardians hadn’t banned him, specifically…”

  “Wait, what?” I interrupted. Again, something Cassandra had mentioned but not expounded on. Ok, to be fair, we’d had a lot of wine by then, but someone should have told me. “What Guardians?”

  “How can you continue to put your faith in a group of people who don’t even inform you about their basic governing structure?” I shifted against my invisible bonds. “Guardians are powerful members of the different groups that live here. Belial and other rebel angels are just one of the many kinds of creatures that the Whitfield Guardians have deemed undesirable,” he said the word with a sneer, “and decided to ban. So you see that the council has left him little choice.”

  “And this is supposed to make me decide to pity him, somehow?” I looked at Amberlyn. She remained seated just like a puppet.

  “No,” he sighed. “I never expected it to. I merely promised him I would try to convince you first. He thinks you will change your mind.” Dr. Christian’s look of disgust let me know what he thought of that possibility. “It’s for the best, Caspia. The longer you stay, the harder he will try to extract you, and the more people will be hurt. It’s only a matter of time before you turn yourself over, if not exactly willingly, then because you’ll be desperate to stop the damage to the town and the people you claim to love.” He slid from his chair with leonine grace. “All you ever have to do is step one little toe outside the city limits,” he whispered into my ear. “Just even slightly, and he’ll know. He’s watching for you, oh so closely. It’s only a matter of time.”

  His hand touched my neck, and I went completely limp again. His voice was soft and wet directly in my ear. Impossibly, disgustingly, he lifted me up in his arms. “You’ve always been so well guarded. He’s been very patient with me, waiting for me to bring you to him.” I found myself crushed against his expensive suit and smothered with his designer cologne. My eyes were barely open slits. “Come along, Amberlyn,” he said to my docile best friend. “You may come with us now.” She got up and trailed us obediently, carrying both our books.

  I hoped he meant it, that he couldn’t harm her.

  He mounted the podium, moving through the professor’s entrance and the lesser-used corridors behind it. Damn and hell. There was much less of a chance someone would see us, someone I knew, and stop us.

  “It’s your phone, Caspia,” Amberlyn said unexpectedly. I’d forgotten; she was holding my purse, which was so full of junk, it rattled like crazy when my phone vibrated. “It’s Logan. Should I…”

  Before Dr. Christian could get a word out, I dove deep for the Shadows.

  I reached for the darkness that throbbed inside me and pulled on the Shadows with everything I had, visualizing them erupting across me like a small storm.

  Only to find a colder darkness twined with mine.

  And suddenly, it really was like trying to grapple with live snakes. Whatever power Dr. Christian wielded, whatever darkness he’d driven into me, to control me, to test me, and it was much older and much more vicious than anything I’d ever touched. I found myself wrapped in darkness so ancient and total it was self-aware. Searing cold, predator-hungry, I pushed against it as hard as I could.

  My monumental effort won me a few moments’ partial freedom. I could breathe again, and see, but Dr. Christian still held me tightly in his arms.

  “…Logan?” Amberlyn asked. She held the phone, blankly but expectantly. Had she answered it? I couldn’t tell.

  Dr. Christian smashed his hand over my mouth. I tasted blood. “Put Caspia’s things down and leave now.” He spoke in a voice like tectonic plates shifting. “Class ended normally. You went home alone.”

  My best friend since junior high turned and walked off without a backwards glance. I couldn’t even be outraged because it meant he couldn’t do anything terrible to her now. I felt the gray immobility seeping in again, and I started to struggle before I lost my hard-won breath of consciousness. I didn’t expect it to do much good, except that I had to try.

  “Excuse me,” I heard someone call out through the gathering gray numbness. “Is something wrong? Do you need help here?”

  Dr. Christian stiffened. Yes, I thought furiously through his hand over my mouth. “No, she’s fine,” he said, a beatific but concerned half-smile springing into place. “Just felt a little faint in class. Must have missed breakfast. I have a couch in my office. We were just headed that way.”

  This helpful person would not take Dr. Christian’s hint, for which I was fiercely grateful. “Really?” he said, coming closer. His voice sounded familiar. “I’m trained in CPR. Maybe I should take a…”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Dr. Christian snapped. The gray numbness got stronger. At any moment, I thought, this stranger would succumb to Dr. Christian’s influence, just like everyone else. I wondered what would happen to him then.

  There was a short, tense silence. “Why do you have your hand over her mouth?”

  My phone vibrated again.

  “That’s really none of your…” Dr. Christian sputtered.

  “She needs air, if she fainted,” the stranger said. “I’m a trained lifeguard. Let me take her outside.” His voice had gotten noticeably lower, more gravelly. “And someone’s trying to call her.”

  Dr. Christian tried again while I lay there, aware but otherwise absent from the proceedings. “Go. Now.” Even I heard the power in his voice, heard the double-layered sibilance underpinning his words.

  But the stranger responded with words so gravelly, they could have been a low growl: “I smell blood spilled in violence.” My torn lip throbbed under Dr. Christian’s palm at the reminder.

  And suddenly, it was as if I was in a small space with two animals. Growling and hissing erupted around me. I was torn from Dr. Christian’s tight hold, only to fall so hard against the linoleum floor I banged my head and shoulder. Momentarily stunned, I decided I didn’t care what had happened to free me. The important thing was that Dr. Christian and the stranger were both gone, strange sounds and all, but I was still in a deserted corridor behind Andreas Auditorium and who knew when either one of them might come back for me.

  One of them wanted to take me for his army. The other could smell blood and violence. I didn’t feel like waiting around to find out what had happened to either of them.

  My phone was in my hand and I was desperate for the air, for trees and sky and freedom while my shaking fingers speed dialed one. He answered on the first ring. “Dr. Christian,” I panted into the phone. I stumbled to my feet, half crawling to the main hallway. “He took me. Was taking me.” Students stopped and stared as I lurched towards the glass doors that stood between freedom and me. My knapsack swung from the crook of my elbow. It felt like the heaviest thing I’d ever had to carry.

  Somehow I made it down the stairs. I realized Ethan was yelling at the top of his lungs into the phone as I went. I couldn’t ma
ke sense of his words.

  Green grass at my back, the sky swimming oddly. “He was taking me. To Belial. Nephilim, monsters… I’ve been so stupid.”

  “Who, Caspia?” Ethan demanded. “Who had you?” He sounded like he was running. “Where did you hear that name?”

  I tried to answer him, but something heavy was sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Strange faces crowded over me. “Give her room,” one of them said.

  “Call 911,” said another.

  “I know CPR.” That familiar voice, the one I should know. The one I should be afraid of.

  I smell blood spilled in violence.

  He was here. I wanted to scream, to warn Ethan, but most of all, to breathe. More weight on my chest. A strange mouth covering mine. Ethan’s voice in my ear, screaming at me, frantic through the phone, but I couldn’t reach him. I couldn’t move. The sky again, I could see it for a minute, so deeply blue until it changed and all I could think of were his eyes, Dr. Christian’s; his blue wrong eyes cracked through with white fire that burned down my spine and exploded in my heart.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Ethical Dilemma

  Something tickled my nose. I smacked blindly at the air and curled in on myself.

  “She’s coming to.” Cotton, leather, and sun-warmed grass surrounded me. I curled into a ball and tried to retreat into oblivion again.

  “You didn’t have to take her clothes off,” an angry female voice hissed sharply.

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Becca. I’m a lifeguard. She needed CPR.”

  “You did CPR on two people at the country club last summer, and you didn’t take their clothes off,” the angry girl insisted.

  The young man answered her with the worn patience of long practice. “Because they were wearing swimsuits, Becca. There was no restrictive clothing to loosen. And one of them was a guy.” Several snickers followed this announcement, whether at Becca or the lifeguard, I couldn’t tell.