Unborn

by Natusch, Amber Lynn

  “I said nothing about your indifference being a fault, Khara. Quite the contrary. It might very well be the one thing that kept you alive down there.”

  “And what of you, brother? Is your callous nature due to your upbringing, or is your soul truly as black as your eyes?”

  His dark orbs narrowed tightly in response.

  “For me there was never hope of turning out any other way. Ares had that in mind when he fucked my mother.” There was a trace of disdain in his voice, which led me to believe that, on some minute level, Casey did not want to be that which he so absolutely was. At that moment, something became clear to me. Casey was a creature of the darkness—a son of the Underworld.

  What I was bound to by magic, he was bound to by birth.

  “Which one was she?” I asked abruptly, ignoring Kierson’s earlier warnings about Casey’s mother.

  His eyes flashed wide momentarily before he regained composure.

  “Which one?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “One of who?”

  “Which one of the Underworld’s women was she?”

  He paused only slightly before answering.

  “Hecate, goddess of magic, ghosts, and necromancy.”

  “I know her well. She is an inescapable fixture in my father’s domain and Persephone’s personal companion when she returns for her time with Hades.”

  “She is a whore who spread her legs for another one of Ares’ breeding experiments, though it did not yield what he had hoped for. He realized early on that I was not invincible. It seems that only Sean captured that quality, though I’m not convinced that you have not inherited that trait as well. It seems that no one is willing to test the theory on you as Ares did on me.”

  “I am not invincible, Casey. It is unnecessary to carry out whatever scheme you have concocted in your mind. I have had more than my share of brushes with death. You need not provide me with another.”

  “If you insist.”

  He turned to walk away from me, but my next question stopped him in his tracks.

  “You were not raised there, were you? In the Underworld?”

  “No,” he managed to reply through gritted teeth. “I was not afforded that opportunity like you were.” Bitterness laced his words, and I found his response confounding. Most wanted nothing more than to avoid my father’s realm at all costs, but Casey seemed slighted because of his inability to stay there.

  “You are angry that she gave you up.”

  “I’m angry that I could not stay where I belonged, sister,” he snapped, whirling around on me in an instant to cram the harsh angles of his face into mine. “The dead call to me—are a part of me. I feel unbalanced here on Earth. I crave the darkness and depravity that the Underworld surely boasts, and yet I can no more return there than you. Few can traverse that which separates the living from the dead, and, even given my birthright, I am not one of them.”

  “Then why does Ares keep you here? Surely he would know a way to return you if that is what you wish—”

  “He keeps me here for the very reason I want to be in the Underworld—the dead call to me. And Detroit has no shortage of them.”

  He looked at me with curious eyes, as though assessing whether or not I could put the pieces of the puzzle together. Wondering if I was bred to be as shrewd as he.

  “And the Breathers—the Stealers—both are forms of the dead, aren’t they?”

  “Bravo, sister. Bravo,” he replied, his evil smile creeping slowly across his face, though never reaching his eyes. “I was kept here for my ability to find and police them specifically, amongst other reasons. Apparently, I have not done that job very well.”

  “But up until this point they had done nothing to require such strict regulation, had they? No need to aggressively hunt them?” I countered. “There are so few of you here in a city so large with much ground to cover. I fail to see how any one man could police the Breathers over such a vast area without the possibility of failure. It would take an army.”

  “I am an army,” he rumbled, still hovering closer to me than was comfortable.

  “Why does this single oversight vex you so? You care for no one, especially not the humans. Protecting them is your charge, not your desire. If their lives are lost, you will not mourn them. Essentially, you have failed at nothing—lost nothing.”

  Heat from a fire deep within Casey, kindled by his fury, rolled off him and warmed my face. I knew what was to come next. I awaited the blow stoically, not flinching as his jaw flexed wildly and his fists clenched.

  But the blow never came. Instead, Casey turned and stormed away from me, muttering something barely intelligible under his breath. Nothing yet. I quickly recognized those as the words he spewed into the black night that framed his dark silhouette. It was then that my brother, as soulless and depraved as the worst of the Underworld, showed me that he cared for something.

  It appeared that something was me.

  “Drew,” Casey barked into his phone from a few paces in front of me. “We’ve got problems. We need to meet. Where are the others?” He paused momentarily, awaiting the answer to

  his question. “Yeah, we’re down by the Masonic temple . . . yes, Khara is with me. No, don’t you fucking start with me. You can be pissed later,” he snapped into the phone. “Mhe ah, weeet us at the Heidelberg Project. It’s close, and it’s abandoned. Be there in five.” He hung up the phone abruptly and shoved it into his coat, where he had also again concealed his shotgun. “Time for a family meeting, sister. There’s a shitstorm heading our way. We need to head it off at the pass.”

  “We can do nothing until you hear back from your lackeys,” I replied, confused as to what could possibly be gained from meeting with the others without any specific information.

  He gave me a wary glance before he opened the car door.

  “I’m not convinced that we have that long.”

  18

  We pulled into a seemingly vacant neighborhood, full of brightly colored and oddly adorned houses. They were unlike anything I had ever seen. I felt Casey’s eyes upon me as I stared out the car window at the bizarre sight.

  “Some of the neighborhoods in Detroit became so run-down over time that everyone essentially left,” he explained without provocation. “This one has been taken over by artists who seem to think that painting the abandoned homes like clowns and nailing baby doll parts and other tchotchkes to the buildings somehow makes this shithole neighborhood look better. I think it’s a fucking joke, but . . . humans are strange beings. If they feel better about their decaying city because they’ve turned it into a cartoon, so be it.”

  Unable to find the appropriate words to comment on what I was seeing, I just continued to stare until we pulled up in front of a particularly strange-looking edifice. The entire exterior was covered from the ground up with dots of every shade and size. In the vacant lot beside it was what Casey referred to as the “Vacuum Graveyard,” where there were hundreds of those devices lined up in meticulous rows, all bearing a cross of some sort. It was utterly fascinating.

  When I finally was able to peel my eyes off the peculiar sight, I saw the others coming toward us from behind the spotted house.

  “Explain,” Drew demanded as he stormed toward us.

  “I got bored. We went out,” Casey replied casually, as though Drew wasn’t about to flay him alive. “Not important at the moment, though.”

  “What is so important that it could not wait until we were home?” Drew snarled as he came to stand before us.

  “Bad guys, what else?” Casey was unfazed by Drew’s hostile tone. “Listen, I paid a little visit to my sewer-dwelling friends.”

  “And?” Drew pressed, looking uncharacteristically annoyed.

  Casey cocked his head as though Drew’s agitation was amusing to him.

  “And it seems like the Breathers are the least of our worries. Turns out that Pierson was right about them tracking Khara. They want her. Badly. But not for themselves.”

  “B
adly enough to get themselves whacked in the process?” Kierson volleyed, his hand flexing around the hilt of his dagger. “That’s a ITAL move for sure and would require a lot of motivation. Besides, who would use them to get her, especially if that individual wanted her intact? All the Breathers wanted to do when they saw her was feed on her . . . maybe worse.”

  “Yeah, well, whether or not they were the right henchmen for the job, I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren’t the only ones out there that are trying to find her,” Casey continued. “Whoever or whatever it is that seeks her knows precisely what she is. Azriel referred to her as the U metines onborn.”

  “Fuck,” Kierson spat. “So now what? Are you telling me that every questionable supernatural in this city not only knows about her but is also after her? Is there a bounty on her head?”

  “That’s what I inferred from the gargoyle. He wasn’t nearly as forthcoming with his information as I would have liked,” Casey said with a downturn of his mouth. “I’m not sure he told me all he knows . . . even after I killed one of his own in front of him. That didn’t seem to loosen his lips at all. If I’m wrong about this, then I guess I owe him a fruit basket. If I’m not, then there’s someone roaming this city who’s after Khara that has Azriel leveraged tightly enough that he would rather face my wrath than give him up.”

  “Fucking gargoyles . . .” Kierson grumbled. “They’re loyal to the highest bidder and no one else.”

  “Who is powerful or malevolent enough to have them willing to walk into a slaughter rather than talk?” Drew asked, trying to rationalize the gargoyle’s seemingly irrational behavior.

  “The Dragon is,” Kierson offered.

  “But the Dragon isn’t around,” Casey replied with amusement. “He and I had a . . . discussion of sorts the last time I saw him. I’m pretty sure he’s back in Europe, attempting to find someone to take care of the little problem I gave him.” Drew shot Casey a curious look that was met with pure malice. “He won’t be back around here for a while. Besides, girls aren’t really his thing.”

  They continued to throw out names and classes of supernatural beings until they appeared to have exhausted their list. Frustrated and without answers, Drew ran his hand through his hair, tugging it roughly. Then he stopped suddenly, frozen in place. Slowly, he turned back toward me, staring at me with fearful eyes.

  “There is someone else . . .” His words were quiet and drifted off into the cold night air. He continued to look at me as though his stare was enough to communicate what he was unwilling to say aloud. When enough time had passed, and he realized that I yet again was not following him, he grudgingly and quietly whispered the name that sent chills up my spine.

  “Deimos.”

  The others looked completely bewildered at what appeared to be a random accusation. Judging by the confusion in their expressions, Drew had still not told them of our conversation in the car a few nights earlier.

  “Deimos?” Kierson repeated, equally quiet. “Where did you pull that name out of, Drew? He’s a scary motherfucker, but he’s not exactly lounging around Detroit. Why would you think—”

  “Because Khara said that he would come for her once he knew that she had been taken.”

  A collective silence fell over the group as they processed Drew’s words. It was obvious that they too knew enough of Deimos to be wary of him and were not thrilled about the possibility of him being the one who was after their sister.

  “Drew,” I said calmly. “He would not make a production of my abduction. He would not use lackeys to seek me out. He would come for me himself and take me. There would be no pomp and circumstance. Though he is one that would inspire fear in virtually any being, evil or otherwise, I do not believe he is behind this. It is not his style.”

  Kierson let his breath out heavily beside me while Pierson and Casey allowed themselves to move for the first time since the mention of Deimos. While living in the Underworld, I knew he was feared by all, including myself, but I had no way oI hCasey allf knowing that his reputation in the world above was as terrifying. Regardless, it was warranted.

  With the elimination of Deimos from the suspect list, Drew resumed his pacing amid the cemetery of vacuum cleaners.

  “So we’re essentially no further than we were ten minutes ago,” he barked. “All we have to go on is what Azriel said, Casey, and you’re not convinced he was even telling the truth.”

  “I don’t trust him, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Casey sneered. “I don’t like the feel of this. Something is off.”

  “The whole fucking thing is off,” Kierson shouted, throwing his blade at the adjacent house. It stuck firmly into the bottom half of what had once been a baby doll, affixed to the wooden siding. “I just want something to stab . . . something to kill. I hate all this waiting around. I want to do something now.”

  “We have to assess what information we do have, brother,” Pierson said calmly. “We need to determine precisely what end this being is after. If we knew what the desired result was, we could work back from that to more concretely identify the person who seeks Khara.”

  “How?” Drew demanded. “She’s an unprecedented being, Pierson. There is no book that you can bury your face in to ascertain such information. It doesn’t exist. Period.”

  “I think that if I—”

  “Hold on,” Drew interrupted, preventing Pierson from expanding on his theory. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his cell phone, giving it a wary look. He pushed a button, then pressed it to his ear. “Oz, what do you—she’s right here. Why?” His expression tightened further as he listened. “We’re in the Heidelberg Project.” Drew pulled the phone away from his ear, looking at it curiously before putting it back into his pocket.

  “What the hell did that asshole want?” Kierson snarled as he made his way back to the group, having retrieved his knife. “He never calls us.”

  “I know,” Drew replied soberly. “He said not to go anywhere—that we should be safe where we are—and he needed to meet up with us right away.”

  “Sounds ominous,” Casey growled. The thought seemed to appease him slightly. He, like Kierson, seemed to be itching for a fight.

  “We should know momentarily. He said he was only a couple miles away.” Drew reflexively surveyed his surroundings, suddenly on high alert. “We need to move inside,” he stated calmly, though the tension in his body betrayed him. “We’re too exposed here.” He pointed to the spotted house beside us and motioned for us to go inside. He no longer spoke, giving directives with hand signals only, his eyes forever tracking something in the distance that did not appear to be there.

  Without giving me a choice in the matter, Kierson snatched my arm, ready to drag me to the front porch and inside the house, but Pierson clamped down on my shoulder before he could. His eyes were pinched closed, his body unmoving. Then, only seconds later, Kierson’s grip on me tightened, his eyes wide and wild. But it was Casey who broke the silence amongst us, interrupting the visi

  on Pierson and Kierson were sharing. It seemed that he, too, had inside knowledge of what was headed our way.

  “It can’t be,” he whispered, his sharp eyes falling beyond the houses to the east of us. “They’re back . . .”

  “Casey?” Drew pressed, searching for the impending danger as he quietly demanded an explanation.

  But there was no time for one.

  Agn=searchill I heard was the drawing of Casey’s blades from the leather strap across his chest before Pierson screamed a war cry, signaling the incoming battle. It startled the others into action as well. The word “Stealers” echoed through the abandoned neighborhood until the wall of evil approaching us at inhuman speed swallowed it whole.

  The agreement had been most egregiously broken.

  19

  There was no pause—no plan of attack. The horde raining down upon us allowed for little more than reaction from the brothers, and that was no coincidence. We had most certainly been ambushed.

&nb
sp; “Get her in the house!” Drew screamed, but his words were unnecessary. Kierson had already closed the distance between us and the spotted building, throwing me through the front entrance before the order was given. He slammed the door behind him, but only after he tossed me one of his many hidden blades.

  “Stab anything that comes in here,” he barked before locking me in the darkened quiet, the fight outside muffled by the walls. I looked around quickly, taking in my surroundings before making my way to a broken window. My need to see how the few were faring against the many was uncontrollable.

  When I peered out, it was impossible to ascertain which side was winning. A sea of bodies encircled the house, my brothers swallowed by it. And that is when I felt it—the pull. The darkness called again, only this time it was hundredfold. My eyes darted to the front door, the sound of cracking wood and heavy steps on the porch demanding my attention, as did the darkness that the one on the other side of the door possessed.

  As if it was weightless, my body glided toward the barrier that kept me from that which I so deeply desired. With every phantom step I took, the intensity rose, stoking the fire that grew within me. Whatever awaited me, I wanted it and would stop at nothing until I had claimed it. The darkness was mine.

  And then the craving subsided.

  For a second I felt its absence like a wound, sharp at first, then fading abruptly to a dull and pervasive ache. I lunged for the doorknob, needing to find what silenced the call. But before I could reach it, the door flung open and Oz stormed in, his eyes wild, his body covered in blackened blood.

  He stepped toward me, weapons in hand. Without hesitation, I obeyed Kierson’s words and stabbed Oz.