“She should be awake by now. Why isn’t she awake?” I heard Daniel say in an agitated voice.
“She spent all of her energy carrying that woman, son. She’s exhausted, and rightly so,” a warm, rich voice answered soothingly. I felt calm just listening to it.
“I know that, Han. I just need to know she’s okay, that the Nightstalker didn’t touch her. If it hurt her…I’ll…I’ll…” I imagined him clenching his hands in rage as he paced.
“She’s fine, Daniel,” I heard another voice say. This voice was light and perfect, tinted with a British accent. “She’s just resting.”
“Maybe we should take her to the hospital. They have equipment there that we don’t have…”
I groaned and pushed away the peaceful sleep. “God! You’re such a pain in the ass, Daniel! I’ll wake up when I feel like it.”
I opened my eyes as I said it, the irritation making me instantly alert. Above me was a very high, elegant ceiling decorated like pictures I’d seen of the Vatican in Rome. It was unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. I instantly felt attached to whoever’s hand it was that had created the painting. Dark woods and expensive fixtures accentuated the elegance of the ceiling.
I heard melodic laughter and a sigh of relief at my words.
“You’re okay!” Daniel said in my ear.
I turned my head and saw him crouched down, his face close to mine. “Am I?”
I looked down. I was lying on a large comfortable sofa with an afghan thrown over my legs. The only thing that was off about my appearance was my lack of jacket. As soon as I thought of the jacket, I remembered Susan.
“What happened to the Ranger? Susan. Is she okay? Did I save her?”
“Yes, you saved her, although we’re going to have a talk about that.” His face turned dangerous. I scowled back at him, not sorry in the slightest. He relented after a moment, seeing that I wanted an explanation. “After you passed out, Jackson and I managed to get you both back to the road. We found some hunters there who agreed to take the woman in their truck. I figured it was faster than your mom’s station wagon. They wanted to take you as well, but I didn’t know if that would be such a good idea.”
“Why?”
He gave me a funny look. “Have you ever been to the hospital? Even for a checkup?”
I frowned, thinking about it. “No.”
“Ellen was probably told your blood was different,” the woman with the song-like voice said. “Which, in your case…might be true.”
I looked over for the owner of the voice and saw two others just behind Daniel looking at me with smiles.
“Sorry,” Daniel apologized. “This is Beatrice and Han, my parents.”
“Hi,” Unable to stop myself, feeling slightly giddy, I added, “Han as in Han Solo? Do you have a Millennium Falcon?”
Another round of laughter.
“And you made fun of me for liking science fiction!” Daniel said indignantly.
“Well, it was funny,” I told him, sitting up so that I wasn’t the invalid patient anymore.
I blinked to clear the dizziness then looked around. Everything about the room was open and bright. The sofa I was on sat perpendicular to a fireplace large enough for me to stand in. Large windows and a sweeping view of the forest drew my eye beyond the other sofa. I looked back, wondering if that view would be mirrored on the opposite side of the house. It was even more spectacular. The windows framed a view of a large clearing backed by mountains. A small lake lay in the distance. Trees and hedges were everywhere in a pattern of organized growth.
To my left were a small kitchen and a short hallway with several doors. Beyond the hallway and kitchen was a large foyer. The foyer framed a massive front door and contained a set of stone stairs that curved around to the second floor. I looked up again and noticed that the second and third floors were exposed to the living room.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Clare,” Beatrice said.
I looked at her shyly, instantly struck by her beauty. She was the woman from the vision. Her auburn hair framed her round face, and her smile was exactly as beautiful and kind as I remembered. The man beside her was the one that had been teaching Daniel the Periodic Table. His smile was kind, but even more wonderful than I remembered. His brown eyes sparkled as if he held the secret of life. They both looked young, twenty-five at most, except for their ancient eyes, which was weird. They didn’t look any older than the memories I had shared with Daniel.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. I’ve…” I didn’t know how to finish. I hadn’t really ‘heard’ a lot about them, except that they were scientists and studied genetics, but I knew how much Daniel loved them. I had seen all the wondrous and amazing things they had done for him over the course of his life. I glanced at Daniel, feeling awkward. How does a person convey that much emotion to someone they’ve just met?
“Han, Beatrice, do you mind if Clare and I talk alone for a minute?” Daniel asked.
“Not at all, dear,” Beatrice answered. “We’ll be in the tower if you need anything.” They disappeared down the hall and through one of the many doors on the right.
We looked at each other for a moment when they were gone, then I put my head in my hands. I was tired, but it was nothing like yesterday’s exhaustion. This was more manageable.
“Can I get you something?” Daniel asked anxiously.
“No. I’m just trying to think straight for our argument.”
“Are we going to argue?” he asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. I looked up at him in disbelief. “Point taken,” he agreed, the laughter spreading to his eyes.
I groaned. “I don’t know where to start, though. There’s so much, and I feel so…”
“Overwhelmed?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
He reached out and cupped his hand on my cheek, as if he had touched me that way forever. “How about we start with the good things and work our way to the…less pleasant ones.”
“Okay. The vision?” I questioned. “Or should I say the joining?”
His eyes turned hard, and he dropped his hand. “Who told you it was called that?”
“Margaret. I…uh, I guess it was talking. I talked to her this morning.”
“She let you share her thoughts?” he asked, figuring out what I meant.
“Yes. Mainly, because she wanted to threaten me with pain and suffering if I hurt you.” I could see him working overtime to figure out what she had told me. “So, what is the joining?” I asked.
He took a deep breath. His foot started a slow beat on the floor. “It only happens to our kind when we encounter the person we’re meant to be with.”
“We don’t have any choice in the matter?” I asked.
“We do,” he said carefully. “There’s always a choice.”
“You don’t sound certain,” I replied.
“Ever been in love?” he asked. I didn’t reply. He didn’t need me to. “You haven’t. I saw that much. It’s a hard choice. Matters of the heart always are.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
His lopsided grin was sarcastic. He plopped down next to me with casual indifference to the furniture and surveyed the view. “I’m mad at you,” he said.
“I figured.”
“Want to know why? Or do you care?”
His words hurt. “I know why,” I said tartly. “Whatever attacked Susan found us. There was this darkness…and something was inside it.”
He grabbed me again and double-checked for injuries. “You saw it? Did it hurt you?”
“No. I’m fine. Why were you out there?” I asked as he released me again. If I hadn’t of known better, I would have thought he kept trying to find reasons to touch me.
“The same reason Susan was. To find what attacked Ryan. We got hints of it last night near…after you were attacked…Um, we encountered it in the woods when you saved Susan, but I didn’t think…I thought you just got lucky.”
“You ran into it?” I asked, remembering
the ripping sound and the yell.
“Let’s just say it won’t be a problem anymore.”
I shied away from the darkness of his tone. Did he mean what I thought he meant? “What was it? Why was it so dangerous?”
He stretched his long legs out, placing his feet on the coffee table. He settled deeper into the sofa, his mind working through an explanation. He bent his head to his chest as he thought. “I can’t start in the middle. Everything will get muddled. We never got to have our talk this morning so…”
“Yeah, cause you didn’t show up,” I pointed out.
“Which I explained,” he replied. “I was out stopping a murderer before it killed again.”
“Fine. Start at the beginning,” I said putting my feet on the coffee table as well.
“What do you know? How much did Ellen tell you?”
“She told me my father was a fallen angel…it sounds weird when I say it out loud. She told me the others like us, other half-angels, were out to get me because of some war. Each side hunts for recruits for that war…if you don’t get recruited, you die. It’s why we move so much.”
“Wow. So you’re saying you know nothing?”
“I know the first pop video was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen,” I said tartly.
He chuckled. “I mean about you, us. What do you know about our world?”
“I know at seventeen we change from human to angel. We become wild and crazy with the desire to kill,” I said softly. “Ellen said my father was very clear on that point.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” he disagreed. “We have a hard time controlling our lust for death, but we do manage to suppress the feeling. Like with the joining, we have a choice.” His face was a strange contradiction of honesty and doubt.
“How do you control it?” I asked skeptically.
“With practice. You’ve noticed my eyes change color.” It wasn’t a question. He knew I had noticed. “You learn to control the anger that is the…gateway into the murderous urges. You learn to hold it at bay.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “If we can control our anger, we can stop the killing?”
“Yes…You don’t want to make me angry, though,” he said, mimicking the Hulk.
“Oh, no. Really? That’s horrible. I get that you like the comics…but…Worst. Impression. Ever.”
He was smiling. “I try.”
I eyed him carefully. “Seriously…if we find the strength to control our anger, we don’t lose control and go on murdering rampages, destroying whole towns and chomping up babies?”
“Yes.”
I let out an explosive breath at his words. He looked at me, understanding the feelings running through my body. His eyes still held doubt, however. Control must be harder than I was imagining.
“Go on with the story,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The fear I would turn into a crazy killer had been haunting me since Ellen had told me the truth. It had followed me as much as the danger of being found.
His eyes lingered on mine in concern as he started again. “So, the beginning…We’ve been called lots of things, but most refer to themselves as ‘Watchers.’ Sort of a misnomer...but it stuck. The war Ellen mentioned is very, very, real. Two brothers, Lorian and Darian, are fighting for power. They want control of all our kind…they simply want the humans dead. There is a legend that the brother who wins this ridiculous war will have more power than any other Watcher before him. They have been fighting for a very long time, longer than most can remember. They call it a ‘civilized war,’ but honestly, I’ve never seen a war more brutal and bloody. The brothers don’t care who dies. They just want to win…
“A long time ago, a man saw a way to make a lot of money off the war. His business was human trafficking…Watcher trafficking, really. He started a guild he calls Seekers. Their whole purpose is to hunt down people like you and me and turn us over to the brothers for profit. They have no allegiance beyond money. Those three, the brothers and the Seeker’s master, have killed thousands, maybe millions, of Watchers. It is a threat we must constantly be aware of. It is a threat that does not go away, no matter how far you are from civilization…”
“And what was that darkness in the woods?” I asked sensing a double meaning in his words.
“A Nightstalker,” he replied.
“Yeah…‘cause if you say it in that tone of voice I automatically know what you’re talking about…” I said irritably.
“It’s easier if I show you.”
He held his hand out. I hesitated, not wanting to be overwhelmed again so soon after our first shared vision. He urged me with his eyes to touch him, asking that I trust him. Our fingers met, and I felt overwhelming pressure similar to Margaret’s mind. He kept the pressure contained, however, not trying to crush me as she had. I saw flickering faces and places rush past in a dark wave.
“What was that?” I asked as the visions died.
“Nothing…Possibilities…Watch.” A scene appeared in my mind.
I saw a dark, rain-drenched street. Two lonely figures walked down the street, gas streetlights fluttering in the cold wind. I looked down at the figures from my perch high up on one of the many buildings surrounding us. Then, I looked to the left, and saw another figure on top of a building, one of the two people had not noticed. It looked like a dog, but a dog pulled from a person’s worse nightmares. Its ears were pointed like a dog’s and its eyes, which were a malevolent red, were framed by a mass of scales. Its massive body was thick with those same black scales. Large claws gripped the roof. The creature resembled an old gargoyle as it perched on its shadowy ledge.
Sniffing deeply, it caught the scent of the people. Its dreadful eyes lit up with happy expectation. That was enough for Daniel. I felt a downward movement in the memory as Daniel jumped from his perch to intercept the creature before it attacked the people. The memory cut off, and I knew he didn’t want me to see what had happened next.
“Hell!” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“That demon…dog…thing was what was in the darkness?” I asked, my voice squeaking in fright.
“Yes. See why I’m mad?”
“Yes,” I said. “But why was the demon, Nightstalker, thing I saw surrounded by darkness? Is that something all Nightstalkers can do?”
“It’s his power,” he said.
“Power?” I asked.
“All Watchers have a power, sometimes more than one. It happens with the change. I can see the future, for instance. Not very well I’m afraid, but well enough.”
I ignored his strange admission. I was too caught in the meaning of his words. I popped off the sofa. “That thing was like us!”
“I said you have a choice. Some choose to cave into the monster and kill. That’s the result.”
“We change into that?”
“If we kill too often and start liking it,” he replied. “It’s a curse no one really understands…but it’s there all the same.”
“Right. No killing then,” I said sarcastically. “Let me get this straight. If I can survive the Nightstalkers and Seekers, and the war, I still have to deal with losing control and turning into a demon?”
“Excellent nut-shelling,” he said.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Not really. You were almost killed today,” he said. “Nothing about that is easy.”
“But you killed the Nightstalker first?” I asked to clarify.
“Yes.”
“I thought that was bad?”
His hands clenched. As they did, I remembered something from the first vision we had shared. The vision of him turning into a Nightstalker.
“It’s not going to happen to you,” I said trying to clear the image away. “I won’t let it happen.”
This was the purpose I had been searching for. It was suddenly obvious.
He kept his eyes on the view beyond the house and didn’t reply. I tentatively reached out and took his slender hand, lacing my fing
ers around his. He looked down at our joined hands then back at me.
His eyes were still sad, but he smiled. “Does this mean you like me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Liar.”
“I never lie,” I said.
“Sure you don’t…” The smile faded. “I need you to tell me more about what happened in the woods. I have to understand. How did you get away from the Nightstalker?”
“I was hiking back with Susan when I saw it come out of the woods.” I touched the diamond at my neck. “Then this started to glow and that thing acted afraid, like it didn’t want to come any closer. I ran with Susan while it was distracted.”
Daniel picked up the diamond with his free hand and looked at it carefully. “This isn’t a diamond. Well, it is a diamond, but it’s more. It’s the tear of an angel. If I’m right, it’s your father’s.”
“My father’s?”
He nodded. I looked down at the necklace at a loss. This had been my father’s tear? Had Ellen known when she had given it to me?
“I thought these were a myth,” Daniel said.
“Is it an anti-Nightstalker weapon?” I asked pushing aside all my other questions.
“I honestly don’t know what it does,” he said. “I don’t know everything.”
“Do you know why the Nightstalker was hanging around?” I asked. “Why it killed Ryan Holt…or even if it killed Ryan?”
“I have a theory.”
“Care to share?”
“Well…Nightstalkers can belong to Seekers. I think Ryan saw something or overheard something he wasn’t supposed to, and he was killed for it. Nightstalkers prefer cities, because people are less likely to notice disappearances there. Having Seekers in the area who are controlling the Nightstalkers makes sense.”
“Seekers are here?”
“I think so,” he replied.
“Why?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. His face said it all. “Oh. Me.”
“They won’t mess with us, though,” Daniel said. “They fear our powers, and last time we had a run in, it got messy. They leave us alone as long as we leave them alone.”
I knew what I had to do. “I should go. Ellen and I should go.”
“I can’t stop you, of course, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. They would just follow you. They are serious about money and you mean money to them.” His fingers tightened on mine. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. Or Ellen.”
He was keeping his thoughts behind a cloud of darkness, but a vision of him protecting me forever rose in front of my eyes. My eyes lingered on his lips as the thought caressed my brain. I hadn’t gotten to enjoy our other kisses, not the way a kiss should be enjoyed. We were very close; a couple of inches more and our lips would meet. He started to lean forward.
“Get your feet off my coffee table! Really, Daniel! You know better!” Beatrice barked from the hallway.
I hurried to take my feet off her table. Daniel did the same, our moment lost. “Sorry,” he said.
Beatrice gave him a mom-look, then took a pile of papers off the dinner table. She disappeared back upstairs with a glare at her son.
“She’s very serious about her furniture.”
I laughed and looked out the window. Then I frowned. Why was the sun going down? Hadn’t I passed out sometime around ten or eleven this morning? I released Daniel’s hand and jumped off the sofa again. I started searching for my keys in frazzled anxiety. “Oh, crap! Oh, crap! Oh, crap!”
“What?!” he exclaimed, trying hard not to laugh at the look on my face.
“I promised to pick Ellen up after work. I borrowed her car and….”
“Taken care of. I called her after I found you and er…did a little bit of lying.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “What did you say?”
“Well, I told her who I was – she seemed excited to talk to me – and that I wanted to take you out to dinner tonight. I told her that I ran into you in the woods while you were hiking, that we had both been searching for the missing Ranger. I also told her I would have Jackson bring her car over if she agreed to the date. She seemed willing to agree. Very willing.” His face melted into a grin. “Did you talk to her about me?”
I ignored his question. “So, she’s okay? And she didn’t have to worry about me passing out or getting attacked by Cujo?”
“Nope.”
I bent down and hugged him. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
“What time does Ellen expect me back?” I asked.
“Not a minute after ten o’clock. You have school tomorrow.”
I settled into the cushioned seats again and threw a leg over his lap, suddenly feeling completely at ease with touching him. “You got any zombie movies?” I asked picking up the remote to the television. He tried to take it from me, but I slapped his hand away.
He laughed. “Tons.”
He gently pushed my leg aside, got up, and started digging though the large entertainment center. I smiled over at him. I hadn’t gotten all my questions answered, but at least I had gotten some…even if they were disturbing. I would worry about the other answers later. What mattered now was that we were together, not as Watchers, or kids with a terrible secret, but as a boy and a girl totally crazy about one another.
Chapter 12
The Watchers (Book 1: The Watchers Series) Page 12
