The Nightwalkers Saga: Books 1 - 7

by Candace Wondrak

  “Last I saw him,” Gabriel murmured beside me, “he was in his room.” There was a glimmering in his azure eyes that told me things I didn’t want to hear.

  Not liking the twinkle in his eyes, I stood and walked to his room. The door was wide open, which set me on edge right away. Raphael was always keen on his privacy, so the fact that his room wasn’t shut was the first clue that something was wrong.

  “Raphael?” I spoke his name cautiously, heading into the heart of the room. My eyes noticed the emptiness of the area. There were no random books, no clothes, and no bags. Everything was gone.

  It was like he wasn’t even here. The room was impeccably cleaned, the bed was made, the closet was completely empty. There was no note, no anything that would hint to what occurred here.

  Not that I needed one, because I knew exactly what happened. I didn’t know where he went, but I knew he left.

  Raphael was gone.

  Chapter Forty-Six – Raphael

  It was time.

  Part of me wanted to stay, because it’s never easy to leave, but I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t belong here. I was the original Purifier. Someone who never aged, never slept, and always followed orders. Being made Vampire by the first woman I felt anything for was the last straw.

  I’d never be anything that was remotely human.

  Why stay?

  Kass did not need me anymore. She had a vast array of friends who would do anything for her, including a boy who was not what he seemed to be.

  I thought I had Gabriel figured out, but I supposed I was wrong. No normal human, Purifier or not, could do the things he did a few hours ago. There was something in him that was unleashed when Kass died.

  Unfortunately, I had no clue what that something was.

  The darkness inside Gabriel must be controlled by Kass, and losing her pushed it out, helping him over the edge.

  As it was, practically my whole relationship with Kass was a lie. I hid my true identity from her, not to mention my feelings. It was for the best, though she was forced to find out from Crixis. Let’s not forget to mention how I compelled Michael to let me train her after they moved here.

  That was only the beginning.

  An unearthly urge told me to pick up my phone, so I slung my bag over my shoulder and watched as the caller ID appeared, changing the screen’s normal appearance. I recognized the number right away, so I flipped it open and said, “You got my message?”

  There was a laugh on the other line. “Of course I did. Sorry I took so long to call back. It’s been a busy few days at the morgue. Lot of people are dying here…we’re beginning to suspect there’s something causing it. Could you help out? I hate seeing my neighbors dropping like flies.”

  “Of course I’ll help you,” I quickly replied. “I don’t suppose that I could—”

  “You can stay here, with us, Raphael,” he hurriedly said, knowing exactly what I was about to ask. “It’s been a while, after all, and I could never turn down a friend such as you.”

  A sad smile crossed my face as I said, “Thank you.”

  “When can we expect you? The house is a bit of a mess right now, so—”

  Cutting through his speech about how filthy his home was, I laughed and said, “I’ll be there tonight.”

  There was silence for a few moments before Andrew spoke, “That doesn’t give us a lot of time to clean.” He was always the neat and orderly man. It was good to know time hadn’t changed him.

  I sighed, saying, “I can help you when I get there.”

  “Well, that defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? I would like you to see our house without its usual messy clutter.” I could hear him shuffling papers around. “It’s just that the wife moved her tutoring and self-defense class here, so there’s always kids around…is that going to be a problem for you?”

  My mind recalled all the times I had training Kass. All those times were now gone, and they were never coming back. “No, I’m used to it. Thanks again. I’ll be right there.”

  He joked “Please, take your time” before I hung up the phone.

  Standing on the side of the road, I threw one last look at the house before flashing away.

  Goodbye, Kass.

  Chapter Forty-Seven – Kass

  I banged my head on the windowpane. The sun was rising, creating a picturesque scene, like a watercolor made with yellows, oranges, and pinks with small blurs of red. It was pretty, but somehow I couldn’t focus.

  Raphael was gone. Taiton was dead. Crixis was…whatever he was. Don’t even get me started on Gabriel. Things weren’t ever going to be the same. I knew I said that before, but this time I really meant it.

  Tucking my arms around my legs, I settled into the overly large windowsill.

  A six-foot figure sat beside me, but instead of gazing out of the window at the sunrise, he stared at me. Even in a hunched, sitting-down position he was taller than me. I kept my eyes firmly glued to the window, not knowing what Gabriel was trying to do here.

  It was when he said “Don’t make this harder for me, Kass” that I came upon the realization of why the blonde boy was in my room, sitting on my windowsill, leaning his head down and cornering me against the crook between the window and the wall.

  “Gabriel—” I couldn’t finish my witty remark. Why? No big reason…except Gabriel’s mouth was on mine.

  Yes, that’s right. Gabriel was kissing me. He was kissing me and it felt good. No, scratch that.

  Keeping his lips locked with mine, Gabriel set a hand on my neck to better the angle between us.

  I closed my eyes and gave in. I couldn’t help it. There was something electric about his touch that made me want to let him do whatever he wanted with me. It was the best feeling I ever experienced. An impulse took over, requiring my hands to slowly make their way up his chest and around his neck.

  My lungs needed to breathe, but I never wanted him to stop.

  In one, swift motion, I was picked up and moved to the bed. Our lips never separated, which must have taken some skill on his part. Even with my closed eyes I could imagine the way his huge figure covered mine.

  Gabriel.

  I didn’t care where we were, I only cared that I was with him.

  He broke away, but not for long. His lips landed on my neck, sending tingles down my body. These tingles were good ones, though. Not like the tingles I got whenever a certain someone would near me or even look at me.

  My eyelids gradually opened to see why the boy suddenly put some space between us. He leaned up enough so that he could take off his shirt.

  Weird.

  When Gabriel came in, I didn’t remember him having a dressy black shirt. And last time I checked, he didn’t have bright green eyes and pitch-black hair.

  What was going on?

  Crixis tore open his shirt, not bothering to waste time undoing each individual button. His tanned chest was perfect, just as it was in my visions. My anger surfaced. Another trick? I was so done with tricks.

  Before I could move a muscle, the evil Daywalker embraced me in a hot, sweaty kiss. His hands traveled down my body, stopping in places where I never wanted Crixis to touch. Keeping his mouth secure on my own lips, he took my hands and intertwined his fingers with mine.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t do anything.

  Crixis, the mass-murdering father/mother killer, was on top of me, shirtless, kissing me.

  My skin felt hot. I wanted to scream. I wanted to beat the crap out of him. I wanted to kiss Gabriel again.

  And, when I realized that, I woke up to find my sheets sweaty.

  I did not feel like going to school today. After the big fight last night, and dying, I felt like I deserved a few more days off. Gabriel and Max? They could go to school, because I also needed some time alone.

  That dream last night…I needed to make sense of it without Gabriel staring at me the whole time.

  When I reached the kitchen, I knew I would have to stop thinking of it,
so I let my mind wander while I was walking at a deliberate slow-as-a-snail pace down the stairs. The touch of Gabriel’s hands, the warmth of his lips…it all felt so real.

  It was so real that I believed it was really happening.

  The moment that Gabriel turned into Crixis was the moment I began to wonder about the authenticity of it all. I was still pissed after dreaming of Crixis. Whether or not it was because he invited himself into my dreams was beside the point.

  Nearing the first floor, I mentally snapped out of it and forced myself to think of how badly I didn’t want to return to school. It felt like it esd ages since I went.

  Gabriel lounged in the kitchen, taking up two chairs, just like he always did. His new hairdo startled me for a short while. I had just gotten used to his lighter hair, and now I had to get used to it all over again.

  Instead of being its recent shade of bleached blonde, it now went in layers. His usual dark blonde color was situated at the roots and the platinum blonde part was the middle layer, while the new color, white, lay at the tips.

  It was hot, especially since it was styled in his usual spikey-fashion. Combine his new hair with his imposing face, his crooked nose, his amazing blue eyes—and his muscled, towering figure…

  His blue eyes flicked to me.

  The smirk in his gorgeous face caused me to say, “Yes, Gabriel. I was thinking how good you looked. You’d probably know it even if you couldn’t hear my thoughts.” I ignored the inevitable chuckle and snagged the box of pop tarts on the table.

  Where was Michael when you needed him to make a good breakfast? It was going to be hard enough facing the day, and now I had to go through it without a delicious meal to kick it off. Today was going to be torture.

  “Can I get you a ladder so you can get off Michael’s back?” Gabriel lifted an eyebrow at my response, which was a weird, facial expression of my own. “He’s making us a homemade lunch as we speak. I just hope it’s ready before we leave for school.”

  Sighing, I practically shoved a whole pop tart in my mouth. “Where is he?”

  “He went into his room after Liz and Max went home to get ready for work and school.” The blonde boy seemed to remember something, for he looked to the front door and said, “Speaking of Michael, he wanted me to get the mail…so do me a favor and get the mail from yesterday.”

  I dropped the box and headed for the door, pretending not to hear the incredulous comments that left his lips. Slamming the door behind me, I couldn’t stop myself from beginning to daydream about his lips.

  Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead doing something for Gabriel, at least not something like this. I was doing it because I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be near him, it’s just that I couldn’t.

  Oh, my God…I couldn’t be near Gabriel without thinking how much I wanted him to kiss me in real life. The boy already said he’d kissed me once, when I was in a comatose state three years ago, but I wasn’t awake and aware of what was taking place.

  The walk down the driveway seemed abnormally long. Maybe I was unconsciously making it take longer than it should.

  After my strangely lengthy walk, I made it to the mailbox and retrieved the few letters and bills there were. No magazines, just a daily paper. We were some pretty boring people, weren’t we?

  A squeak called my attention, and I looked to my left to see a big, white van where two men were lifting a number of black bags into the back. I knew just what was in those bags, too. Taiton and Sephira.

  When the younger man bent to pick up another bag, he glanced to me and smiled. Mr. Wood, my math teacher. To make my conscious feel better, and so that he could get back to work, I smiled and waved. These two guys, plus Cleo, were the ones who took Koath after he was murdered by the same Daywalker who had, inadvertently, avoided being captured/purified by Taiton.

  I guessed he was lucky, huh?

  For now.

  I was going to head back up to the house, but I made the terrible mistake of scanning the neighborhood first. I did not like what I saw.

  Walking across the street, from the open door of the house opposite mine, with an insanely smug expression on his face, was Crixis.

  How badly I wanted to wipe that arrogant, hypocritical look off his thin face…and also how I badly I wanted to kick myself in the rear for noticing the fact he wore a similar shirt to what he tore off in my dream.

  Clutching the mail tighter, I stormed across the street and went up his porch, where Crixis waited for me with a smirk that was trademarked to bad guys.

  “What are you doing here?” I decided to ask, figuring I had nothing to lose. If I could die and somehow survive an encounter with an Original, I could handle myself against Crixis for a few minutes. Then again, I was wrong before. “I thought you said you would leave us alone if we helped you?”

  Crixis held in his response until he was a few feet from me. “I am leaving you alone. I’m not attacking you or anyone you know, am I?” He cocked his head, causing a wisp of his cleaned black hair to fall over his eye.

  “You promised you would leave—” I was soon rudely interrupted by the man I wanted to shank with a spoon-knife. Again and again.

  “Actually,” his haughty self felt the need to correct me, “I never said that. I promised I would stop kicking your ass so hard and that I wouldn’t kill anyone else you care about.”

  My teeth grinded instantly. “You’re just asking for it now.”

  “Oh.” Crixis stuck his hands in his pockets and thought. “Perhaps I’m thinking of someone else, then. The girl who’s tried time and time again to defend herself from me, can’t fight the urge to listen to my calling, and has very improper dreams of me…wait. That is you.” A know-it-all grin crossed his face.

  “You,” I lowered my voice to a harsh whisper, having a sudden and impractical fear that the men in the house could hear me, “I knew it was you who caused my dream last night.”

  The Council members who took the bodies drove away, leaving me all alone with Crixis, who waited for that precise moment to step way too close to me and say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have time to enter your dreams.”

  What? There’s no freaking way that was true…was it?

  “Liar,” I accused, placing the mail between us to give me more space. This family-killing Demon liked to get too close to me, and one of these days, he was going to get punched. Repeatedly.

  Him saying he hadn’t forced his way into my dreams was a game he was trying to play. He wanted to see how I would react. He wanted to play me.

  “I was far too busy moving in to have any time to—” Crixis seemed pleased when I cut in. My lack of manners must have been a turn on. If only he could see how much I was holding back from going truly ballistic on him.

  “Moving in?” My voice trailed off.

  “Tell me, are you going to throw me housewarming party?” The way he spoke the words with a mischievous tone…

  Even if he didn’t whisper it like a psychotic creep, I would have known exactly what he meant. Sick.

  A grunt left me when I heaved a punch to his jaw with my free hand, staggering him back in astonished surprise. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again. If you do, then I will personally chop off your fingers and toes. You might be invincible, but I could still make your eternal life miserable.”

  Clutching the mail as tight as I could without tearing the paper, I spun on my heel and stormed up the driveway before he had a chance to reply. I knew he was just going to grin his evil half grin and say something snarky back.

  And I couldn’t deal with him. Not now.

  Not ever.

  Chapter Forty-Eight – Liz

  The board was going to hire that nice secretary, just as they rightly should. She seemed to be a very agreeable woman who enjoyed interacting with children on a daily basis. That was a quality that was difficult to come by these days.

  The high school began its school
day in forty minutes, but I was here, in my office, far ahead of time because there were a few things that I needed to take care of. All but one involved the school.

  The most important one dealt with the Council.

  Taiton’s report.

  Throughout this entire mission, Taiton kept a detailed report that accounted every major advance. I, myself, haven’t read it, but I was seconds away from doing so.

  I pulled the file from the flash drive and opened it. There were a few, solid pages, which I knew would make for a light read. In any case, I was there to witness most of this; therefore, I had no need to read through all of it.

  I would skim for significant minutiae, though, and finish the report with the end result.

  The first few paragraphs were straightforward enough. I was beginning to suspect Taiton hadn’t gotten to the precise point that I was looking for, but it was then that I found their names.

  Raphael, Kirk, John, Claire, and Alyssa.

  So Taiton had mentioned them, and their respective Demons, after all.

  That certainly wouldn’t do.

  A hesitant finger clicked the mouse after the whole paragraph describing what they were, who they were, and their relationship to Kass. This might be against my better judgment, but I couldn’t allow the Council to see this.

  If they did read this in its entirety, then they would undoubtedly send more Agents to purify them as well. The Council was anti-Demon all the way.

  The Council could never see Taiton’s original report.

  Breathing lightly, I held down the delete button until there was no record of Kass’s Demon friends.

  Chapter Forty-Nine – Michael

  Gabriel and Kass were downstairs in the kitchen, one complaining how I didn’t make breakfast and the other defending my honor, saying I was cooking them lunch instead. Gabriel was right. I was baking them a lunch that would be so delicious, they’d never forget.

  My door was locked, and I sat atop my bed, Koath’s laptop in hand.

  I still had one more article to read: the one that Koath wrote just hours before his death.