by Vicki Keire
The darkened windows of our old apartment reminded me that neither Logan nor I lived there anymore; hell, Asheroth had even rescued the cat. Home was now nothing but a collection of unsafe empty rooms―unsafe because the protective wards around the place had been destroyed.
The remnants of the coffee shop on the square made me sad. I had spent so many afternoons there, making lattes and goofing off with Amelie. Now there was nothing but a burned-out husk of a former business. Blue tarps rippled in the breeze; clearly someone had been here, trying to start cleaning up the mess. But to me, it was as if there was a hole in my heart. Only by getting the business restored would I feel better; we had to show those who would stop us that we were a resilient lot.
Ethan’s hands alighted on my hips, steadying me, while the hot sting of salty tears worked their way down to my nose. “It’s not your fault,” he said.
It was exactly what I needed to hear―reassurance. “It feels like it is.” I turned to bury myself in his soft cotton shirt again; it hit me how tired I was. I shook it off and smiled at Ethan as brightly as I could. “But we’re here, together, and nothing’s on fire right now, so…” As I turned in a slow circle, taking in the rest of my town, I saw something that made my heart stop.
My fountain. My beautiful, beautiful fountain at the center of the square. For the first time in my life, it wasn’t running. It wasn’t lit up. Hell, it didn’t even have any water in it. I had never, ever in my entire life seen it that way.
“The fountain!” I said, starting forward toward it. “What happened?”
“It was vandalized. We’re not sure by whom,” Ethan said. There was a tight edge to his tone that I hadn’t noticed before. “One thing is certain. The incidents of violence against innocents here in Whitfield are growing to the point that even the innocents are noticing. The Council has had a hard time explaining it away. Things are at critical mass here, Caspia. It’s like a forest right before the fire; everyone’s on the verge of panic.”
“But what’s happening?” I demanded, bewildered.
I’d been afraid of the ones I loved being hurt, and yes, that I had caused some chaos in my town was a possibility, but this? This went deeper. This pointed to something not right in Whitfield itself, and I needed it to be right. Needed it badly. How else was I going to survive the Dark Realms if Whitfield was struggling?
“Oh, Caspia,” Ethan said, and I could hear nights of worry in his voice. His fingers through my hair were both gentle and possessive. I wanted him to twine them there and hold onto me forever. “War has come to Whitfield at last.”
stood there, horrified.
My mind couldn’t process Ethan’s words. It was absurd: war in Whitfield. I lived in the town where nothing ever happened. Except, apparently, angels and demons and a host of other supernatural creatures. But besides that, it was really pretty boring.
Most of the time.
Branches scraped themselves across the face of the moon. They waved gently in the night air, creating ribbons of slowly moving, tangled light on the concrete below me. I wanted to lean into Ethan and stay there forever, but I was too shocked by my surroundings to move.
At any moment, I expected the fountain to burst into life again, highlighting its statues and singing with trickling water. I expected to see trees draped with tiny white lights―what my mother had called fairy lights―but only a few gap-toothed and broken strands remained. I wanted to see all of the shops on the square brilliantly lit up, doors flung open in welcome. Instead, more than a few looked closed, their interiors dim and doors firmly shut. I longed for everything to be back to the way it was, back to the Whitfield I remembered.
But nothing changed, and I turned to Ethan once again. He pulled me close until our hips brushed against each other and I rested safely in the crook of his arm. He nuzzled the top of my head with his lips, murmuring, “It’s all right. It will be all right.” His words were as soft as the gentle wind around us.
I found myself relaxing in spite of everything, longing to believe Ethan’s reassurances.
Only to feel icy fingers on the back of my neck. Strong like a living statue’s, they wrapped slowly, but surely around me while a too-familiar voice spoke languidly in my ear.
Asheroth, here? What the hell?
“Dearest Caspia. Here you are again. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve been?”
Ethan stiffened beside me at the all too familiar voice. “And you’ve made everything worse through your actions,” Asheroth said, drawing out his vowels to give his words extra emphasis. His fingers drummed against my skin, their texture rough like lightly weathered stone.
“Let her go,” Ethan said, his voice taut with anger. He trembled against the side of my body where we touched. “She’s done nothing to you.”
“On the contrary,” Asheroth said. “You lied to me, Caspia. You lied to both of us.” He actually sounded a little hurt, underneath the cutting tone of his voice. His fingers flexed against the back of my neck, icy and uncomfortable. For just a moment, I was reminded of how powerful he was. He could crush my bones to dust with one hand―if he wanted―in an instant.
I shivered in his grasp, and then forced myself to stillness. I wasn’t ready to apologize. Not to him, not yet. “What do you want, Asheroth?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral. Who knew what kind of mood he was in tonight, and what the consequences of that mood might be? Best to play it safe and careful.
I found myself ripped from Ethan’s grasp and spun around to face my very angry, self-proclaimed guardian. He looked every inch the Fallen angel, cast down from the Realms of Light for daring to love a human woman. That human woman had been my ancestor, long since dead; he had taken it upon himself to guard me for her sake. I truly believe guarding me was one of the few things keeping him clinging to sanity. His pitch-black hair was on the boyish side of long with tendrils of it getting in his eyes. Those eyes burned at me now, a brilliant white like staring into the sun. His abyss-wings weren’t visible. I took that as a good sign, that he could somehow control the Darkness inside him.
Asheroth’s hold on me migrated from neck to forearms to waist. His hands were cool through my clothing. I could feel the barely-constrained strength there in the delicate way he held me as if I was blown glass that might snap in his hands. My mad Fallen angel was being careful. “I want you to take things more seriously,” he practically snarled at me. “I want you to think before you act. I want you here, and not in the Twilight Kingdom.”
I couldn’t be sure because he was Asheroth, but I thought I saw a measure of concern as well as madness in his diamond-bright eyes.
“That’s what we all want,” Ethan soothed, coming to stand by my right side. “There’s no reason to frighten Caspia.”
That got his attention, and to imbue him with a fresh reserve of sanity. He set me down carefully and stepped backward, still giving me a stern, disapproving stare. Ethan stood right behind me, his presence a solid comfort against my back. Jack maneuvered himself so that he stood behind me, but to the side. His skin shone with the same blue that now ran across mine and Ethan’s. But Asheroth’s skin was still pale stone.
“Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “How did you find us here in the Dreamtime? I thought only Jack…”
“Your Jack should be more careful with his portals,” Asheroth scoffed, sparing my Azalene counterpart an icy glare. “Caspia, you truly have no idea how much you’ve complicated things.” Asheroth’s speech was slow and halting, sounding tired instead of angry now. “This goes beyond you running away―straight into the arms of the enemy.” He turned a weary gaze to Ethan. “How much does she know?”
I was sick of the way Asheroth treated me like a helpless and unreasonable being. “She doesn’t know very much,” I snapped. “Ethan had just gotten to the word ‘war’ when you showed up. I think that would be a great place to pick back up, don’t you?” I stood with one hand on my hip, not caring that I still wore Belial’s silvery nightgown.
“And how can we possibly be at war already when I’ve only been gone for one day, maybe part of another?” I tried to remember how long I’d spent in Belial’s room, unconscious. I had no concrete idea, I realized with some horror. What if it had been longer than that? I was just opening my mouth to ask when Jack stepped in.
“Time moves slower in the Twilight Kingdom,” Jack said, looking sad as he did so. “A single day there means several have passed here. You’ve been gone longer than you think.”
It took me a minute to digest this disturbing piece of news.
Before I could ask, Asheroth said, “A week.” He put a crisp staccato emphasis on both syllables.
“A week,” I repeated dully.
“In Belial’s corner of the Dark Realms, that amounts to roughly three days,” Jack said quietly from behind me. I stood in silence, trying, and failing, to process it all. At least now I knew I’d spent nearly a day unconscious in a demon’s room. I knew that every day I spent there took me farther and farther away from Ethan. But I swallowed my unease.
Finally, after a very pregnant pause, I said, “How can this be possible? Even after a week… who would want to move against us now? I thought the threat had been dealt with. Just who are we at war with?”
“With the Light,” Asheroth answered after a long silence. “They’ve sent Hunters.”
Beside me, Ethan hissed. Jack actually reached for a weapon, only to come away empty handed. None of us were armed in the Dreamtime.
Even though Jack had mentioned them when we encountered them in the ether, I still didn’t know exactly what Hunters were, or why the Light was something to be afraid of. “And this is bad because…”
“They are the un-Fallen,” Ethan supplied grimly. “The advance guard of the Realms of Light. They have hunted Nephilim in the past, and we can only assume they are here to do it again.”
Dread washed across the pit of my stomach. “Logan!” I said, suddenly terrified for my brother’s safety, and angry with myself as well. My brother’s newly manifested Nephilim gifts could easily make him a target. “Is he all right?” I demanded.
“Your brother is safe behind the wards of Blackwood Lodge,” Asheroth said without inflection. “He won’t be easy to detect among all those people. And his gifts were such a late development. No one knows about them but us. He is as safe as we can make him.”
“We’ve seen the Hunters in the ether,” Jack said, looking to me for confirmation.
I nodded wordlessly, remembering shapes in the mist. “They’ve infiltrated the Dreamtime at the very least.”
Ethan swore under his breath. “They’re closer than we thought, then.”
“I thought all of this was supposed to end when I turned myself over to Belial,” I murmured, rubbing my temples with my thumbs. All this new information and the surprises of the evening were combining into a killer headache. None of this was supposed to be happening. I had made the great sacrifice, and that was supposed to be it. I should never have thought things would be that simple. “Tell me about these Hunters,” I asked instead. “Tell me what they’re doing to my town.”
“This,” Asheroth said with barely constrained rage. His white eyes snapped fire and he threw his arms wide to indicate the entire square. “The Light knows Belial is building an army of Nephilim descendants, and they know he will use this army to challenge them. They know about these Shadows of yours, and just how much of a threat you are. Therefore they are building an army of their own, and they will use it to crush this town and anything else that stands between them and Belial.”
“But our town is warded against such possibilities,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I don’t understand why it should affect the square like this. Where have all the businesses gone? Why is the fountain shut down?”
With his shoulders drawn back and his eyes sparking fire, Asheroth looked like he was ready to explode. “What would you do if you were one of our Darker residents here in Whitfield, and one of the most powerful forces of Light imaginable suddenly started building an army right next door? It would make you a little panicky at the very least. In the last week, we’ve had several residents from the Darker side of town pack up and leave. Not all are going quietly, though. The town council is deadlocked as incidents of violence against innocents are on the rise. And the fountain?” He sneered. “Someone spray painted, ‘Fear the Light’ on it and smashed the pumping mechanism to bits. No one knows how long it will take to fix.”
The cold march of dread once again settled in my stomach. My town was in danger, and there was nothing I could do to help because I was trapped in the Dark Realms with Belial.
Before I could ask the question out loud, Jack turned to me. “I hate to break this up, I really do, but we’re running out of time. I can’t hold all of us here for much longer.”
Ethan nodded and pulled me close once more. Asheroth merely glared at us and turned his back. I thought I caught a glimpse of Darkness shimmering where his wings sometimes were.
Ethan’s arms encircled my waist, pulling me close to him. Everything else faded away until there was nothing left for me but Ethan. Being this close to his scent, his skin, his kind ,light eyes made me long to bury my head in his shoulder and forget everything I knew about the world. In his arms there was no Belial, no Twilight Kingdom full of desperate, tormented Nephilim. There was only the two of us.
But I couldn’t repress the final, burning question for very long, however tempting it would be to forget about everything but the two of us. I pressed my forehead against his chest and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? About Belial?”
He sighed heavily and pulled me closer until I was flush against his chest. “I wasn’t sure it was him at first,” he said. The thrum of his heart beat against my ear. “I had no idea how obsessed he’d become, so it was easy to put it out of my mind. And then, when I knew it was him, I hoped you wouldn’t have to find out.” He pulled back just enough to look at me. His gentle fingers brushed hair from my face. “Please believe me. I never thought you would have to encounter him.”
“And I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for my own stupidity,” I said, walking my fingers to the center of his back, where I rubbed very small circles across the surface of his skin. It was true; I was culpable too. We both could have been more honest with each other. I only hoped this one mistake didn’t prove fatal.
Then Jack took my arm, trying to pull me away.
I buried my face in Ethan’s chest and clung to him. “Shh,” he whispered into my hair. “I’ll see you again soon. Promise me.” Then he kissed me, his lips soft, but urgent. My fingers dug into his hips as I kissed him back.
“Of course,” I said, crying now. “But it’ll be longer for you than me…”
“Shh.” He let me go.
My arms had never seemed emptier than they did at that moment. I let Jack take my hand. The last I saw of Whitfield before the ether consumed us was a mournful looking Ethan and Asheroth’s angry back. That and the fountain, standing in the middle of the square like nothing more than a lump of concrete and broken things.
What an apt metaphor for the wreckage that was my life.
awoke to find Jack staring me in the face.
His fingers laced through mine, and one leg was thrown across me. The smooth black suede of his uniform rubbed against me through the thin material of my nightgown. I was suddenly aware of his scent: spicy-sweet and slightly musky like fresh oranges and male.
I jerked my hand from his and rolled to the edge of the bed. “What the hell are you still doing here?” I asked, shielding myself with a hastily snatched pillow.
“I have to be touching you to take you with me into the Dreamtime,” he said, somewhat defensively.
“Well, we aren’t in the Dreamtime anymore.” I thought about the truths he’d held back like Hunters and Belial’s existence, and decided I wasn’t quite ready to forgive him yet, let alone trust him. “And that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here now.�
�
“Calm down,” he said. “You make it sound so sordid.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it is sordid.” I paced backward into a set of red velvet curtains, rich and reassuring against my back. “And I’d very much like you to leave now.”
He rolled lazily off the bed, grinning, and approached me slowly. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said as he advanced. He leaned against the wall and stroked the crimson curtain between forefinger and thumb. “I’m here to be your ally. I don’t know what I have to do to prove that to you.”
“You can stop lying to me, for one,” I said, angry now, and shifted a few inches away from him. “Besides, what if we get caught here together?”
“I’m nothing if not sneaky. I managed to evade Belial for months before he caught me. He wasn’t pleased, let me tell you.” He gathered a handful of red velvet and pulled, revealing a pair of glass doors. “I’ll just let myself out the back way.” He grinned.
I pressed my nose against the glass. “A… balcony?”
“Just step outside and you’ll see,” he said, inching closer to me. “Go on. Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
“That does not make me feel any better,” I told him, looking through the glass at the scintillating purplish sky. But I was curious, so I did as Jack asked.
The balcony was small, barely big enough to pace four long steps. It seemed a pleasant enough place compared to the rest of Belial’s realm; a magnificent view of the twilight vista spread out before me.
Then I made the mistake of looking down.
I would have stumbled had Jack not been there to catch me. The bottom was hundreds of feet below us; it made me sick and dizzy just to look. I was acutely aware of warm hands on my waist.
