by Vicki Keire
But there was no way to separate the darkness I carried in my blood from the abilities I’d been born with. Of course the mist attacked me. Everything happened so fast. I tried to focus on the Shadows and block out everything else. As if I could ignore the heavy wet fingers reaching for me as Ethan propelled me across gravel and through a passageway.
It always felt as if someone was walking over my grave when the Shadows crawled across me. The mist had that same skin-crawling creepiness to it. I flipped my wrists up. It helped, seeing Ethan’s gift, the empty wings right over my pulse points. I envisioned pulling the darkness slowly back into me, like rewinding an old reel of film in slow motion. It came too easily, like slipping on a pair of plush velvet gloves. I was getting altogether too comfortable with my darkness.
We rushed down a path bordered by overgrown hedges. Mist still clung to me like greedy fingers, but it lost its powerful hold when the Shadows went. The pathway was a new threat, though. Hedges reached out to us as if they could tell we were there, and didn’t like it. Their green branches snatched at us like grasping hands and pulled at my hair and clothes. They were alive and angry, determined to catch us and keep us from reaching the end of the path. Thicker branches snaked around an ankle. Pebbles and roots crunched underneath my feet. I might have tripped if not for Ethan’s iron grip on my shoulders. Logan remained several steps in front of me, punching and shoving at the hedges as they tried to block his way.
He stopped abruptly as the wild, overgrown hedge formed a solid wall right in front of us. There was no way forward, and the branches darted forward, pinning us in.
“That can’t be right,” Ethan murmured, studying the wall of green in front of us as if it was a particularly troublesome section of a crossword puzzle. “Unless…” He walked slowly back and forth in front of it, one corner of his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He stopped in the exact center as Logan and I both pulled leaves and snapped branches as fast as we could.
“Logan! See if you can push through and feel a wall through there.” My brother obeyed, thrusting his arm shoulder-deep into angry greenery while Ethan and I continued to fight against the encroaching hedges. They seemed more frantic now that we had reached the wall.
But they stopped entirely as soon as Logan reached through the overgrown hedges. “There’s something back here,” he confirmed.
As if hearing the call of a silent snake charmer, the vines and branches blocking our way melted away at Logan’s touch. When the overgrown greenery withered away, he stood in front of another gate resembling the first one we’d used. This one was solid gray stone, door and all. It had a very modern touch screen set into the stone next to the door at shoulder level. “That was strange,” he said at last.
“Uh, yeah,” I seconded. “Why don’t you come away from there, Logan? Because any sane person would be leaving right now, instead of standing there like he was trying to figure out how to get inside, and he certainly wouldn’t be dragging his sister along without telling her what the hell is going on.” My voice climbed on the last few words. A pair of birds screeched their indignation and flew away over the hedge. Smart birds.
“It’s ok, Caspia,” Ethan said as he released me. He examined the touch screen closely. “We’ve been here before. You’ve been here before.”
“That does not make me feel better,” I ground out.
“This wasn’t here, though.” Logan ran his fingers along the sides of the touch screen. “I don’t see a key pad… how do you…”
Ethan said a single word in a language strange. He said it only once, but he said it loudly and with complete confidence. I didn’t understand the word, but I recognized the flowing beauty of it.
Nephilim spoke it.
The touch screen flared as if lit from within. Strange symbols scrolled across it in perfect lines.
I got a cold, squirmy feeling in my stomach. “Ethan,” I half-whispered, “where are we?” But part of me was pretty sure I knew.
The more important question had suddenly become why, not where.
Ethan studied the scrolling symbols. “I can’t open it,” he told Logan. “Not anymore.” He could not disguise his bitterness. “It has to be one of you. Just a drop should do.” Logan turned and saw me staring, saw the fear and confusion growing in my eyes, and gave Ethan a curt nod.
“I’ll do it. You’ll take care of her?”
“What are you talking about, Logan?” I demanded. “What stupid thing am I about to have to stop you from doing?”
There was only one Nephilim besides my brother and me in all of Whitfield, and if he had security to keep people without Nephilim blood out, then I sure as hell didn’t want to go in.
Ethan held me around the waist so fast I had no chance to lunge for my brother, no chance to grab the folding utility tool he always carried with him. The same tool had once belonged to our father. It had a good blade on it, kept sharp and in good repair just as Dad had taught him. A dull blade is more dangerous than a sharp one, Dad told him when he gave it to him. It had only to kiss my brother’s palm to bring the blood welling to the surface. Very dimly I heard Ethan at my ear, talking, trying to calm me, but his words didn’t register as Logan pressed his bleeding palm to the touch screen.
The ground beneath us rumbled, then shook. Ethan dropped with me to the ground. I found myself staring at gray stones set in earth. For a brief moment all was chaos. Sounds blended together in nonsensical ways while the earth rebelled. Mist descended on us and just as rapidly dissipated. Birds cried out against groaning stone, and threaded through it all was howling wind and… was that a piano? Then everything was still and silent, the massive stone door stood wide open, and my brother stood just inside it, his hand a bloody mess.
“Caspia?” Ethan’s strong hands hauled me up, smoothed my hair, and checked me for damage. “Are you all right?” I could see the relief in his eyes when I nodded.
“And you?” I asked. I pulled a twig from Ethan’s hair. “I’m going to check on Logan.” I glided closer to my brother, cradling his bloody hand in my own. “It’s a shallow cut,” I said carefully, not meeting his eyes.
“Those bleed the most, sometimes.” Logan was rattled, I could tell. I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Then I thought about how he’d sliced himself open and caused a small earthquake to bring all three of us straight to Asheroth. He and Ethan both.
I braced one hand on each of his shoulders. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do anything like that to me again. I watched you die once already and I won’t do it again, do you understand me?”
It took me a minute to realize that, although my hands were still braced against his shoulders, he’d picked me up by my elbows and now held me dangling several inches above the ground. It didn’t even wind him. He had no trouble breathing, no trouble saying, “Wait a minute, Cas. I wasn’t anywhere near dying. It just took Nephilim blood to open…”
“Stop it!” I howled. “How was I supposed to know? You won’t tell me anything! You wouldn’t even tell me where we…” He peeled my fingers from his throat and dumped me on my butt. I landed with a shocked thud. “…Are,” I finished uncertainly, looking around me at last.
At an incredibly beautiful expanse of twilight sky above a wide meadow ringed by dense forest. I swept my gaze around me quickly; wisps of white mist floated through the trees. To my left, the meadow disappeared in an abrupt cliff side drop broken only by the outlines of a low structure.
“Where we are,” Ethan said softly, almost regretfully, “is safe.”
I looked around at the beautiful, naturally enclosed space. If Asheroth’s living space was suddenly their idea of safe, we were in worse trouble than even I knew about. Ethan’s warmth and his scent of icy juniper at my back made me wish, more than anything, that we were home.
Chapter Nineteen:
The St. Clare
“There’s a reason for that,” Logan said, offering me a hand up. I took it while I stared at the
beautiful house and grounds that opened up in front of me. “This isn’t just any safe house, Cas. It’s one of four guard posts, I guess you’d call them,” he raised an eyebrow at Ethan, “that keep Whitfield... what it is.”
“And Asheroth just happens to be here too,” I said flatly. “Could you possibly be any more cryptic?”
“We couldn’t take the chance that Belial might have more agents nearby, listening or waiting to follow us. And,” he shrugged, “we thought if you knew who it belonged to you might not come,” Ethan seconded.
“Well, that’s not an unreasonable fear,” I admitted, turning around in a slow circle. Late afternoon threatened to melt away into early evening, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful place in early twilight. “I’m having a hard time associating this place with someone like Asheroth. He always struck me as more the damp rotten dungeon type.” A house with wall-length windows rose from a series of low stone steps connected by a series of patios. The house appeared to have several loosely connected wings, spreading out in a scattered way rather than rising in stories. I loved it instantly, although I tried really hard not to. It blended seamlessly into the dense woods around it. Verandas made of light colored wood ringed what appeared to be the main part of the house. I realized with a quiet inhalation of pleasure that the house almost literally hung off the side of a cliff. “Is that…?”
“The St. Clare?” Ethan smiled. “Yes.” I started towards the cliff, but he stopped me with a gentle tug on my hand. “Caspia.” His looked pained. “I am sorry. I wish there was another way.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this the same place he took me when he kidnapped me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I looked around again. Nope, still beautiful. “It couldn’t look less like it,” I admitted.
“The more, uh, secure parts are underground.”
“Of course they are. I knew someone like Asheroth just had to have a dungeon lying around.” I tried to ignore the breathtaking natural beauty around me. “What are we doing here? What do you mean, this is one of four ‘guard posts’ around Whitfield? Insane homicidal Fallen angels aside, it wasn’t exactly easy getting here. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so eager to risk our lives.”
Ethan stood with his back to the cliff side and the oncoming twilight. When I took his hand, twining my fingers through his, something relaxed between us. He pulled me close against him, close enough to feel the gentle thrum of his heart. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that, if Dr. Christian was telling the truth, if someone as powerful as Belial is after you, then it’s no longer safe to stay in town.”
“What do you mean, no longer safe? It’s my town. I was born there. I’ve always been safe there.”
“Yes, but this time, the town isn’t safe from you.”
Ouch. Guilt blossomed. Darkness simmered in my blood. Dark creatures hunted me. Of course I was a threat to the town I loved. I should have left it a long time ago, before people got hurt and the coffee shop burned.
Ethan didn’t try to feed me some empty comfort about how everything was going to be ok. He walked towards the house and turned to see if I would follow. When I did, he walked straight for the edge of the largest veranda, leaning over the edge where a several hundred feet drop waited. “He’s not going to stop coming after you. Even if Belial can’t come after you personally, the town is still at risk as long as you’re in it. We have to get you away from mortals and innocents until we can come up with a plan. It’s for your protection as much as the town’s.”
“Great,” I said flatly. “I can’t even go home.” I kicked at the railing. “I suppose Asheroth doesn’t care if this place burns down like the coffee shop, then?” I let the railing carry my weight as I slumped in on myself. “I know that was my fault.” Looking down at the swiftly moving current, I let myself feel its loss. I was convinced it was my fault that the coffee shop burned and that Amelie and Nicolas had left. I could put Mrs. Kenner’s assault in my column, too. None of the bad things had started happening until the kidnappings. Until Nephilim descendents started disappearing. Except that for some reason I didn’t completely understand, I wasn’t as easy to get.
“It’s not your fault,” Ethan said, bumping me sideways with his shoulder. “I can tell what you’re thinking and it’s not your fault.”
Did it matter, I wondered? Like called to like. Jack found me in the Dreamtime because he had gifted blood like me. Perhaps Belial sensed my secret darkness, knew how easily I’d turn if he could get me away from my safeguards and circle. “Maybe if I went and turned myself in at the city limits everything would go back to normal,” I said softly.
“Obviously I need to work on my cheering you up routine,” Ethan said with a sigh. “That is the worst thing you could do. Trust me.” He straightened. Muscles stretched underneath his t-shirt, reminding me of how much he’d changed physically in the few months since I’d first seen him in Mrs. Alice’s shop. “This Jack. The Dreamwalker. Why does he visit you?”
This was dangerous territory. I hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with Ethan about my dreamtime rendezvous. “I think it’s the only way he can escape the horrible place he’s being kept, along with the rest of the Nephilim gifted.” I tugged on my jacket. Ethan’s jacket. “I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes he has horrible cuts and bruises, even in the dreams. I think he comes to warn me. And to teach me about Shadows.” I frowned. “He has total control of them, Ethan. No one else can teach me that. But mostly he gets mad at how little I know. About Whitfield and my own history.”
“But you admit you’re not entirely sure,” he insisted. “About why he comes to you in dreams.”
I couldn’t read his face, and I didn’t like what he was implying. “No, I’m not entirely sure,” I repeated.
“Then how can you trust him?” He didn’t look at me, so I couldn’t tell what he was thinking from his expression. I studied the map of his body instead, the taut way he held himself, the way his fingers splayed across the wooden railing as if he could rip it up and use it as a weapon. He hated that I’d kept this from him; I could see that in the way he held himself ready to strike.
At me, at Belial, at himself. I didn’t know whom he wanted to hit, exactly.
I just knew I hated what I had to tell him next.
“I met him first in a dream.” Logan had the fire going well by now. Its orange warmth chased away the dark if not the chill. “That night after we practiced for so long by the river, I was sick. He called it Shadow-sickness. He said I was burning out, and I believed him.” Ethan straightened; I barely heard his softly indrawn breath. “I believed him because I knew then that we were alike, Jack and I. Blood calling to blood, that’s the only way I can describe it. He fixed it. The Shadow-sickness. So yes, Ethan.” I slipped my hand over his; it had somehow become a fist against the railing. “I trust him. Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Ethan echoed through clenched teeth. “But not entirely.”
“No.” I sighed. “I suppose not entirely.”
“That’s why none of us knows more about these places that protect Whitfield. We don’t know how long Dr. Christian has been under Belial’s influence. We don’t know if there are others under his influence, too, or if he’s found entirely new ways to get through our defenses. We were only told we had to bring you here. Logan and I would never have brought you through something like that mist, or pathway, had we any other choice.”
“I know that.”
He fingered my bracelet. “I know a bit about the different kinds of gifts of Nephilim descendents. The next time this Jack comes to you, tell him to bring me over.” A finger found the bare skin of my pulse. “He’ll know what it means.”
I leaned into him, towards warmth and light. I was tired of the dark and uncertainty, of the way he spoke about Jack like I’d done something wrong. I wanted the day to be over. I wanted the uncertainty to be settled, to know where I was going to sleep so I could close my eyes and open them again on
a new day that didn’t contain an attempt to kidnap me, burn something down, or hurt someone I loved.
I hated to say it, but I wanted Asheroth to hurry up get here so I could invade his shockingly lovely home.
“It’s beautiful here.” I couldn’t keep a note of wistfulness out as I stared at the sprawling airy house and beautiful grounds. The back of the house was even more stunning than the front. A long porch hugged the back of the house, which was all glass and light. I could just make out the masses of differently hued darkness that I knew were patches of trees and thick forest on the other shore. “Did you know I was trying to sketch this river when I drew you for the first time, and started this whole thing?” I wrapped Ethan’s jacket around me more tightly. I hadn’t had a chance to change out of my ruined shirt. Logan waved at us from the fire pit on the side of the veranda. “Just think, if I hadn’t come to the river that day…”
“Then you might never have had the pleasure of breaking through dangerous security to invade my house,” Asheroth said cheerfully from behind me. “For which I assume there must be some extreme emergency. As pleased as I am to have at least one of you as my guest, coming here could so easily have ended in all of your deaths.”
I spun; there he stood, in the deepening shadows, his red leather jacket meticulously buttoned all the way up to his throat. His words were polite, and that terrified me more than anything. A mad and gibbering Asheroth was preferable to a focused one. It was when he was sane that he got deadly. “Is this some kind of sick joke, Ethan?” I asked, taking an involuntary step backwards. Right into his waiting arms. “Didn’t he know we would be here?”
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “I only know I had to take you someplace safe, even if it angered him.”
Ethan’s hold on me tightened and refused to let me go.
“Ethan,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What are you doing?”
