Abigail turned her gaze to Kayden and started to speak. He instantly drowned her out, eyes never left my face. "By all means, get even more pissed. Blow yourself up and kill everyone here. It'll be their blood on your hands. You think Leo's death was hard, try living with the knowledge you killed hundreds."
I looked down to my blazing hands, watching the fire roll over my skin harmlessly. "You know what? I like the sound of that." I flexed my fingers, letting coils of the flame lash out at them from the blaze between us. With the pressure of my body I launched the wall straight at them. Kayden wrapped himself around Abigail as she screamed just as the fire raced around Kayden, burning him in seconds. It dawned on me that Kayden could be gone from that burst, or that Abigail could be burned to the point of deformity, maybe even death. Yet somehow, I didn't care. Every feeling I had was locked in a box within my soul, leaving me with a hollow sensation I couldn't place.
Spinning sharply on my heels, I crossed the parking lot and slid inside my car. The growing roar of the engine felt oddly satisfying, the rumble just enough to match the quakes and quivers of my body. For a second I looked back to the building, my neck tilted to see inside the doors where I had abandoned the two traitors. My car had just inched past the double glass doors when I spotted a burst of black smoke fill the hallway.
The skin on my knuckles flared white against the steering wheel as I navigated through the streets of Belfast. I was searching for something, anything to distract me from setting fire to the whole town. School was too risky, too many potential events that could trigger my anger and hurt someone innocent. Home was just as dangerous, as Jayson was bound to ask me why I was so uptight, and I didn't want to hurt him. I was barely keeping my temper in check as I drove, and I knew that at any point I could lose it and blow up the car. I needed some place quiet, somewhere the fresh air could hit my lungs and tame my thoughts with a gentle breeze.
I crossed past the same church three times over before I settled on parking. It was mid-afternoon, so no services were being held. I made sure to pull my sketchbook from my messenger bag before I left the car. Connected to the small church was an equally small graveyard, the perfect place to go for a quiet moment. After all, who's quieter than the dead?
Only the sound of my footsteps sounded around me as I rounded the headstones one by one. Most of them were faded, crumbling from age and weather, and the new ones stood out in sharp contrast. My fingertips brushed over the black marble of a new headstone naming an older woman who had died four years ago. Instantly I was enraged. Leo deserved one of these, he deserved to be buried and rest. But the stupid facade Kayden and his parents agreed to all put on made that impossible. All because no one wanted to cause a panic in the town.
Between the hospital and home I had learned there was much more to the eyes of Leo than anyone had let on. His family held a key role in gate-keeping the entrances to Charon. They decided when new entrances could be placed and who held control over them for safe passage. Leo had been the last of his blood line. Now, with him gone, the question was who would take over when his parents pass.
Finding space between two aged headstones, I found a comfortable place on the grass to sit, my sketchbook propped up on my legs for support. Slowly I turned the pages, taking cursory glances over the abstract designs. It used to be something I loved, an outlet for my frustration. Now all I saw was Leo. Images of his hands reaching for my pencil, his happy smile as he showed me Charon, it all blurred behind a wall of haze in my mind. I had it shut it out- all of it -if I was to ever function again. So much easier said than done when you've seen two violent deaths before your eyes.
My fingers found the pencil I kept in the ringed binding and before I knew it, I was drawing. Sheer impulse drove the pencil against paper, framing a beautiful almond-shaped eye with a dark iris, small arcs of light breaking through the black smudges of lead. It wasn't an eye I openly recognized. Most of my drawings were normally manga related; cartoon eyes with dramatic eyelashes and open messages displayed in their large stare. This one was human, a real life eye.
"I didn't know you enjoyed my gaze that much, Nephilim." A female voice softly purred behind me. Instantly I snapped out of my haze, like breaking through a watery surface with force. I looked around to see the graveyard had turned darker, shadows pulling towards the headstones and swirling around me. Slowly they spun upward, framing in a delicate woman I had only met once.
I waited for the initial shock of wear off before I used my voice. The Queen looked as ornate and elegant as she had the night of the circus disaster. A flowing gown of the blackest of fabrics cut with a sweetheart top swallowed her petite frame. Gloves of the same fabric were decorated with sparkling pearls and Swarovski crystals. Beautifully dressed or not, it was her pale face framed by curtains of black hair that stood out. "Your gaze?"
She glided over with inhuman grace and gently crouched down to point at the picture I had been working on. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that would be my eye." She stared at me with curiosity. "Do you carry the Sight, as well?"
I stared up at her face and back to the photo. Sure enough, the photo I had been instinctively scribbling had been of her eyes. Maybe I was psychic? More likely than not I had remembered her face in my subconscious when I was revisiting that night in my memories. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time I was surprise by my own hidden abilities.
I shrugged and brushed off her question. I was in no mood to deal with any kind of mind games she might try to enact on me. "Did you need something? Or do you just enjoy taking afternoon strolls in the mortal realm?"
The Queen appeared unfazed by my cold shoulder. "Kayden said you were brash. I can see he was right." She smiled. "Do you speak to him like this as well?"
"You answer my question, and I'll answer yours."
Her smile faltered by a fraction before she recovered with poised grace. "Very well, then. I came to see you. You had left in such haste after the... incident. I was worried for your well being."
Her lies lingered in the air like bitter puffs of sulfur, strong enough to taste, strong enough to gag on. "Two weeks is an awfully long time to wait. You could have just been honest and said you wanted to see if I was dead yet."
She opened her mouth slightly to speak, only to close it. Rich honey brown eyes narrowed at me. "You haven't answered my question, Nephilim."
"Essallie. It's Essallie," I corrected with a snap.
"Essallie it is, then. You haven't answered my question."
I turned my eyes back to the drawing on my lap. With a jerk of the paper, I ripped it from the sketchbook, crumbled it into a wad and chucked over my shoulder.
"Only those who smell to high heavens of bullshit and ulterior motives." I rose to my feet and faced her, heat lancing through my veins like spears ready for the fight. "Spit it out. You didn't come here to check on me. So why are you here?"
Her eyes widened in surprise as I stood there, waiting. After today's nonsense with Abigail and Kayden, I had heard enough bullshit to span my lifetime six times over. Queen or no Queen, I didn't owe her anything. If anything, she owed me her life. It had been my hands covered in Chase's blood, not hers. For sacrificing my own lifespan to a torture of burning veins so her and all her little supernatural freaks could continue on in their meaningless existence.
Finally, she spoke. "You're smart. Smart enough to know not to trust me." Brushing past me, I watched as the shadows moved with her, forming a small pool around the hem of her dress. "I am, however, surprised to see you trust a demon of all things. Especially someone like Kayden."
It was bait, I knew it. She was testing to see if I'd wait to see the shoe drop off the other foot. Fire spread from my fingers and washed over my hands. I pointed an emblazoned finger at her. "Your simple mind tricks won't work on me. I'm not interested in playing your petty game."
A horrid smile spread so far across her face, I thought it might split in half. She laughed as she stepped closer, until all I could see was
the kohl lining the rims of her narrowed eyes. "Oh, you'll play my game whether you like it or not."
God, she sounded like a freaking cartoon villain. I started to turn and leave, my hands still engulfed in the angelic flame. "Sure thing, Queenie."
Shadows erupted from the ground, bursting skyward in sharp, jagged spikes. They spiraled together until a thick black cocoon sealed around the graveyard. I pushed a burst of flame through my veins to light up the inside when I saw a glimmering black spear launch into my hand. I screamed and the shadows launched into a fury, dozens of them stabbing at my hands, my arms, anywhere the fire pulsed from my body.
As I screamed and thrashed, the Queen spoke. "You see, Essallie, there isn't an option to ignore my voice. When you control the dark and all its splendor, you'll find many are willing to listen if it means their lives will be spared, if but for a moment."
Pressure crushed my chest as I fought to breathe. Breathy whispers spoke to me, like wind whistling through barren tree tops. My fire was gone, swallowed by the stabbing shadows that sunk into every inch of me. Emptiness seeped into my pores and filled me with a hollow sensation. Everything was so dark, so empty, so lost.
The shadows retreated, and I collapsed onto the ground. I watched through watery eyes as they took their place just under the Queen, shifting and swirling. She reached down and ran her hand across the shadows in a loving gesture. Some of them had spun up and into the fabric of her gown, forming swirls of deep violet against the black. "Now, let's chat."
I unsteadily rose to my feet, every inch of my body shaking. I felt like a leaf in the wind- powerless, frail, empty. The burn inside of my veins was gone, cooled to an bitter icy sensation that spread throughout my body. I reached deep inside to trigger the fire only to find a cold hollow instead. My fire was gone.
"What," my voice cracked. "What did you do to me?"
The corners of her lips hitched into the vague image of a smile. She breezed past me to sit on a thick headstone several rows over. Her hand beckoned me to follow. "Teenagers these days, " I heard her say. "Always so eager to start a fight. No doubt the hormones compel you to do it." Sitting on the etched granite, she looked up at me with a sympathetic gaze. "It must be hard, being so young and having this power you can barely control. I almost wish I could relate."
I stared down to my shaking, open hands. Hormones were the least of my worries. When you played with fire, you were bound to be burned. She could never understand, no matter how tied to her magic she was. "You don't know anything about this. Just go, leave me alone."
She let out a barely audible laugh. "You underestimate my ability to feel. Most demons lose their ability to harness emotion after centuries of seclusion from humanity, but there are a small few who never forget. I know more than you'll ever understand, Essallie." I looked up in time to watch her face harden, her mouth set into a thin line. Something stirred behind her eyes. "Some of us experience things that can never be erased. You think it was painful watching a friend die-"
"He wasn't a friend. He was so much more than I'll ever be able to explain," I spoke faster than I could think, the words rolling off my tongue with violent force. My hands shook as I missed the comfort of my inner fire. "Everyone keeps telling he was someone I barely knew, had little time with, and because of that I'm supposed to get over his death just like everyone else. They don't understand. When he died, it felt like part of me went with him. This goes deeper than some friend dying, this was someone tied to my soul."
For a moment, the Queen stayed silent. Only the subdued sound of her shadows filled the empty space between us. "I lost a daughter. So yes, I do know what it is like to lose a part of your soul, your spirit, or whatever it is we supernaturals have inside us. I know what it's like to feel yourself rip in half." A haunted look stirred in her eyes as she spoke through a thin lipped smile. "She looked just like you. That's why the night at the circus I was so guarded. I had thought for sure that my mind was trying to do me in."
My stomach dropped into my feet the same moment my chest let off a jolt of pain. Embarrassment and humiliation washed over me in waves. Here I stood, complaining over someone who may or may not have been tied to my soul, and yet she harbored a deeper secret than I had. A daughter, someone of true flesh and blood, lost to the ashes and dust.
The image of a jackass came to mind. I didn't linger on the thought for long, but I did add the loss of her daughter to the list of things Kayden had failed to fill me in with. And that list was growing awfully damn fast.
"Kayden never mentioned anything like that." I gently replied. I wasn't sure what to say past that. I'm sorry your daughter died and I'm pissing and moaning over a boy? My apologies I'm a selfish hot-headed teenager?
The lack of apology didn't seem to faze the Queen. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she let out a huff of laughter. "I can see Kayden hasn't told you nearly as much as you think he has. Tell me, what did he say about me?"
That she was cruel. Anyone who got on her bad side was as good as dead. All the things you'd tell someone to keep them from speaking to another. "Nothing redeeming."
She nodded, running a hand through her hair and twirling the ends around her index finger. "What reason does he have for staying by your side?"
"What do you mean?"
"I simply find it a little odd," she began, speaking slow to my narrowed gaze. "I've known Kayden for over seven hundred years, and not once has he been the type to simply stay with a fledgling, a newcomer, unless there was something to be gained."
But I knew what was keeping him. I was the only one with the key to his freedom. My still-beating heart ensured his connection to me, our uncanny bond. As long as I lived and breathed, he would continue to remain in the shadows, waiting for his chance to finish the charge assigned to him.
"I think he was wrong." I heard her say, surfacing me from my thoughts. When I looked up at her, she was shaking her head. "You don't seem to be easily manipulated. Then again, I didn't kiss you like he had."
For the second time today, I felt the air leave my lungs. My mind instantly brought me back images of his molten gaze, the smooth sound of his voice. I banished the pictures from my mind and ignored the heat on my face. That was supposed to have been our private moment. I hadn't told anyone of the kiss. "How- how do you know about that?"
"Essallie, do not tell me that you thought that kiss was real." The Queen came down to my level, swaths of black fabric and energy-hungry shadows licking at the edge of my feet. She stared at me intently. "I can see it in your eyes and the red on your cheeks. You're fond of him."
Fever in the form of blush colored my cheeks, my heart beating to the tune of a painful pitter-patter. "Answer me! Who told you about the kiss?"
"Who else would have told me, but the demon who did it himself."
I was starting to think my gut-punch reaction to everything I had learned recently was becoming a habit. Forcing myself to keep breathing, I ran my hands through my hair. Anything to keep myself from trying to punch a decade-old headstone.
The Queen continued, her face carefully kept neutral. "He had laughed and told me I hadn't to worry about you. That any chance of you ascending was gone because of a little magic he'd done before you had all arrived." She frowned as she spoke, no doubt from seeing the physical pain I was struggling to keep inside the more she revealed. "No war could come from a dying angel, he'd said."
"He, he said he would help me." A curious numbing sensation began to spread from my chest to my fingertips. He had offered to help, that he would make it fair before trying to kill me. That's what was supposed to make this interesting. But if he'd purposely made me focus on him instead of Leo... if I had never kissed Kayden, would Leo and I have connected? Would he still be here, guiding me, saving me from myself?
"I'm sorry, but I need to go," I said, standing on my shaking limbs. The numbing sensation was starting to turn into sharp jabs of cold, sinking deep into my gut and heart. "I'm sorry about your daughter."
&n
bsp; She held out a hand to stop me, but didn't grab or push at me. "Don't you want your gift back? Your fire?"
I shivered and stared at the ground. A bitter taste coated my tongue when I spoke. "Probably not. Unless you're giving me the okay to kill Kayden."
The Queen came to stand before me, mere inches left between us. Hands cupped just under her chest, she gently extended them outward toward me, a small blue flame flickering in her palm. It shot straight for my chest, lancing into me with instant effect. Warmth spread through every inch of my body, replacing the numbing, hollow sensation that had been there moments ago.
"You may leave," the Queen said. "but before you do, a warning. Kayden is not a person to be trusted. He'll only use you for his own gain in the end."
"Like I didn't already know."
"And one more thing. Do be careful." Her voice sounded almost resembled something of sympathy and genuine concern. "When it comes to the race of Nephilim, the world reacts in two ways. None will take kindly to your angelic blood; there will be those who will seek to harvest your blood for their own gain. Others will want you dead, no matter the cost."
Wariness crept over my skin. "Why would you tell me this?"
"Because one of the last Nephilim was killed at the hands of a madwoman. A woman who tried to harvest the blood of Nephilim to create the perfect race."
CHAPTER TWO
ALL I HAVE
I drove home in a daze, the warmth of my inner fire the only thing grounding me. I was conflicted; the more I went over my conversation with the Queen, the less it made sense. Right out of the gate she told me she wasn't to be trusted, yet she offered me a piece of detail surrounding Kayden that suddenly made everything fall into place. Her words made me call into question all of Kayden's recent actions- the distance, the bitterness, the lack of affection after kidding me like it was just us and the world-
Obumbrate (The Illumine Series) Page 2
