Heartbreakingly beautiful to begin with, he only shined more with a crooked smile gracing his lips. "Probably should have known we both couldn't go at the same time. Sorry I couldn't be there," he murmured softly. Fingers reached up to touch one of the emerald earrings I still had on. "Did she...?"
Even with his ethereal looks, the easy tone of his voice and words couldn't save me from the gravity of his question. Like weight pulling me to the depths of the Atlantic, he brought my mind back to the reality of things. I had just been officially handed my personal death sentence. I had felt it in my gut for weeks now, but this was actual proof spoken directly to me.
"She did," I started to get on my feet, wincing. So much for thinking I wouldn't have leftover pain from the fall.
"And she said what?" Ari got to his feet before I could, and helped me up. I couldn't believe it; he looked completely unscathed, free from any injuries. Heat rolled off his skin in waves. Up this close and under the barely useful lights I could make out more than before. Tangled and curled strands of his platinum hair spread askew from his face, sticky strands clinging to his sweat-dampened skin. Perfect planes and angles of his face stood out, his skin radiating as if he were filled with a personal sun within.
I warred against myself to reach out and touch him, fear that making any sudden movement would ruin the moment and send my ethereal saint away.
I froze. Ethereal saint? Warring to touch a person? I balked at my own state of mind; what was I, a boy-crazed twelve-year-old waging battle with hormones? I liked Ari, that much was obvious, but I certainly didn't need him. My life would continue without him should something happen. I was a half-angel with the clock ticking against me- there was no time to be thinking of budding emotions over another half-angel.
"I was right." The words sounded like a dull echo as they left my lips. "Leo had been mine. I will die."
For a minute, Ari said nothing. In answer, he reached out silently, wrapping his arms around me in a soothing embrace. The effect was like stepping into a tropical paradise untouched by man, left alone and beautiful in its wild state.
"We should go," I finally said, stepping away from him. Two small spots on his shirt were damp- tears I hadn't even been aware of collecting in the sides of my eyes. Nervous laughter painfully mixed with my words. "I'll need to be returning to Maine."
He seemed to regard me for a long moment, waiting to see if I'd crack under the weight of my world and initiate hysterics. I was stronger than that.
"It can be arranged," he said quietly, the zeal in his eyes dimming to burnt out coals. "I can get you to a safe portal home so you can be with your family." Reaching out for my shoulder, he stopped and thought better not to, instead gesturing to the door leading outside. "Come on, it's probably getting close to sunset."
Ari hadn't been far off; the door open, I could make out the faint glimmers of stars decorating the color-blended sky, navy blue crushing over oranges and yellows still fighting to linger on the horizon line. Even a city girl like me had to stop and stare. A delicious, chilled breeze swept at the skirts of my dress, far better than the heat we had originally walked through to get here.
"Coming?" Ari called over to me, impatience playing in his tone. "I highly doubt you want to spend any unnecessary time here."
I removed the emerald earrings and placed them in a small pocket fashioned on the seam of the dress. "Hold your horses, I'm on my way." Two handfuls of the skirts and a small jog was all it took to catch up to his slow and exaggerated stride.
"Technically I'm holding your horses, Miss I Can't Wait To Get Home and Explode Into Flames," he teased rudely, the grin on his face the only balancing factor to his words. "I really do wish you'd stay, Essallie. You never know, we could find a cure for you before it's too late."
"Are you afraid of death, Ari?" I asked with a growing suspicion.
He looked shocked, nearly colliding into a set of barrels outside one of the street shops. "What? I, no, heavens no. Why would you think that?"
It was as if someone had ignited a darkened part of my brain to life. At first, Ari's words over trying to save me from my assumptions had seemed noble, very angel-like. Still, there was a layer of wonder that left me curious if his aversion of death had something more to do with a particular black memory in his life.
"Nothing," I said hurriedly, but not before making a mental note to revisit the thought at a later time. "Just some mindful musings."
We kept going forward, reaching to the end of the main street. The packs and thick pools of people that had been there earlier were gone, no doubt home with family or friends to settle in for the night. I started to feel the familiar ache of missing my brother, couldn't help but wonder how he was. Was Abigail staying at home with him, protecting him just in case? Or did Kayden have anything to do with helping him? Regardless of earlier conflicts with both, I couldn't see Kayden doing anything to help out my family, not when he was seeking my death for his freedom.
"Hey Ari," I started to say, about to ask him if he knew any neat ways to possibly set a demon on fire for all of eternity, when a loud scream cut off all other sound.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PRAY FOR THE WEAK
I spun around, bewildered. What little people that were left on the strip were scattering, running in every which way they could. Behind them, darkness surged in billowing black smoke, the silhouette of a Vens coming forth. This one was male, unlike the first one I had dealt with, dressed in the same all-black get up.
Ari took one look at the Vens before rounding on me, eyes nearly popping from their sockets with a jolt. "You weren't lying when you told Serena you were attacked?"
"What do I look like, the little girl crying wolf? And what the heck is with all this Men In Black crap?" I swore, grabbing even larger handfuls of the dress and running. Ari grabbed my wrist and pulled me along faster, turning us onto one of the streets off the main and rushing forward. "We need to get to a portal-"
A sharp silver dagger sailed past me, but not before it sliced into my arm. Pain rippled through my arm, and I screamed in the same moment my shoe caught something in the ground, ripping me from Ari's grasp and flattening me to the pavement.
Hands were on me in an instant, grabbing at my throat and digging fingers into the soft skin. I gasped and kicked about, connecting with someone's shin hard enough to drop me with force back to the floor.
I rolled over to my back, coming face to face with the Vens out for my blood. He gave me a petrifying smile before striking me with some kind of metal, and I blacked out.
Inside my mind, everything was underwater. A voice, urgent and afraid, continued to call out to me from above the surface, but I felt comfortable under the waves.
"It's nice in here, isn't it?" A voice, oddly familiar, said to my side. In the shifting colors of the water, I made out a face with long, sleek blonde hair and bottomless brown eyes stare back at me. She looked like a porcelain doll, perfectly made up from the even tone of her skin to her plump red lips.
I had to laugh; of course the face was familiar, it was me a year before Chase came along and ruined everything. My mind was playing games with a shrink version of me.
"Have you ever been out there?" I asked my carbon copy, pointing toward the surface. "It's violent as hell. I'm pretty tired of having to run for my life because my parents created a little bundle of unloved abomination."
"You don't have to go back, you know," the long haired me replied, shrugging her dainty shoulders with grace even underwater. "No one is forcing you to leave."
"But if I stay here," I trailed, frowning. "I'd never see anyone again. Jayson, Ari, Kayden, Abigail, Serena. They all mean something to me."
"Then go," she urged, but the smile on her face wasn't happy. She looked almost disappointed I chose to leave. "I'm sure we'll see each other another time, soon enough."
"Essallie!"
My eyes fluttered open, and I heaved a sigh of relief. Pain throbbed at the top of my skull, and something
wet was running down the side of my cheek. I hadn't been moved from the pavement, which meant I had to have been out for five minutes at the most.
I struggled up and looked over to the sidewalk, where Ari and the Vens were at it. Ari's upper chest and shoulders had been covered by the white fire like the breastplate of a suit of armor, his arms encased in the flames as well. He and the Vens moved around in short, jittery moves, circling each other like men in a fighting ring.
Ari made the first move, lancing a spear of the flames at the Vens. He dissipated into black smoke, swirling behind Ari and reforming in time to make a critical blow.
Without thinking I raised my hand, an arc of the wild blue fire soaring through the sky and searing the Vens' arm. He screamed in agony before bursting into smoke once more, blue smoke trailing with his dematerialized shape. I took the opportunity to roll up onto my feet and over to Ari's side, hands pressed outward and ignited for the fight.
"Enjoying your final days before you burn, Nephilim?" The smoke laughed cruelly, small tendrils steadily forming limbs. "I knew it would only be a matter of time before you returned to this place."
"If you have a point to make, then make it," Ari hissed, flames rising off him in waves. His hair began to defy gravity, hovering off his face mystically. "Otherwise, it's time to barbecue you and move on."
The Vens burst into smoke, spreading out through and around us. Coils of it laced around my neck and forced up my nose, choking me worse than when he had grabbed me. I fell lightheaded, stumbling away from Ari and falling painfully onto my knees and palms. The Vens materialized instantly, one hand still smoke, the other grabbing my shoulder and roughly pulling me back to my feet.
"She comes with me, but don't worry, Nephillim, you'll join her soon enough," the Vens shook my shoulder. "Wave bye-bye, pretty girl."
Fire sparked off my back like quills exploding from a porcupine, shooting straight at the Vens. Once more he screamed and pulled away from me, only this time he couldn't vanish into smoke to save himself. The volatile blue fire wrapped around him like a boa constrictor, tightening and burning deeper into his skin. Ari ran forward, arms still covered in his white flames, and grasped the Vens around both shoulders.
"Who sent you?" Ari demanded, repeating the question when the Vens only answered in a soul-shaking scream. "Who sent you to kill Essallie?"
The Vens jerked his head, whipping it back and forth in a violent display. "Not kill, only capture. The Queen can't use dead blood, not for what she needs."
Queen? I felt the color drain from my face as I listened, Ari continuing to press him for more information. Flashbacks of the sunny afternoon in Belfast surfaced through my thoughts. He had to be lying, he couldn't be telling the truth. Perhaps there was another Queen who wanted my blood, but it couldn't be the one who had warned me of the dangers herself, could it?
"What does she want with me?" I fearfully asked, feeling my hands start to shake. "Why does she need my blood?"
"I'm not told these things," the Vens spat malevolently, still managing to sneer between his facial contortions of pain. "All I know is one thing; I was instructed to bring you back, alive and intact. If I don't someone else will. Either way, Queen Lucretia will have you, Nephilim."
He gave one last shriek of unbridled pain before the fire fully consumed him. Flesh melted away in chunks, dropping to the ground before melting into puddles of putty, then to ash to carry with the wind. When it was finished, all Ari held in his hands were a set of black bones.
I stared at the pile of dark bones in his arms, numb. I wanted it all to be a lie; for someone to say that the Queen didn't hire him, that it was a case of mistaken identity, anything to make it better. I couldn't get over the fact that the same woman who tipped me off of Kayden's plans could be the one to set a price upon my head, payment for my blood. What could she possibly gain from having my blood? As far as I knew, Nephilim gifts weren't transferred from person to person through blood like a vampire bite would work, and my blood wasn't some curious color like green or purple to warrant wanting to bottle and display it for some bizarre and personal collection. So what could the reason be?
Ari came over to me, his arms still cradling the pile of black bones. He visibly winced seeing me closer. I had a good guess as to why; blood covered part of my face, dirt staining both the dress Serena had lent me and any visible skin, and I was pretty sure patches of purple bruises covered parts of my skin too.
"I'm pretty sure you're going to need stitches for that," he said with a sigh, motioning to the outskirts of Charon. "Come on, who knows how many more of them may be looking for you? We need to find shelter."
I had already started walking down the street, eyes scanning the houses on either side for any shady onlookers. The warmth of my fire was swirling inside my stomach, the sensation like I had placed hot rocks in a circle around my belly button on my abdomen. But nothing could offset the pain of my head, the ache in my bones. Bone-weary didn't even start to touch how I felt.
"We could go to Serena," I suggested, glancing quickly over my shoulder to see if he was keeping up with me.
He appeared lost in thought, holding one of the longer bones in his hand like a knife. Where his fingers touched the bones began to turn green like moss, spreading and growing until it covered the it whole. A gasp caught in my throat as I watched budding flowers spring out from the mossy substance.
"Hopping habaneros, what the heck did you just do?" I was caught between amazement and delightful shock.
Ari's eyes looked up to meet mine, all amazement vanishing from my face. He looked haunted, the normal wistful and bright glimmer in his eyes lost to a vacant and hollow stare. It had been as if someone sucked the life right from his own bones and left him to wander alone.
I turned around and came over to him, worried. One touch of his skin had told me he'd gone cold, like an iceberg floating among the Atlantic. "Ari, what's wrong?"
"If I told you," he started to say, then cut himself off with a shake of the head. Strands of hair covered part of his stare as he searched my face carefully. "You should go, Essallie. Find a portal and go home."
I frowned, clearly not on the same level of thought he was. "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand."
"What don't you understand?" He scowled, brushing past my shoulder and continuing down the road in a rigid stance. "You've made your place in this world clear. You have no intent to fight, no intent to do anything but waste away in a mortal world with a half-sibling you know nothing about, now go."
I caught up to him easily, grabbing an upper arm and spinning him around. "Hey, you don't get to talk to me like that. You have no idea what I've gone through to get here-"
"Like hell I don't, Essallie," Ari nearly shouted, the hollow in his stare replaced with a bright and hostile look. "It's always about you and your brother and how your clock is running out. Have you ever thought for one single moment of all the lives placed in danger just to help you succeed?"
"You leave my brother and my personal problems out of this!"
"How about I start when you stop using it like a crutch?" He demanded spitefully, throwing the black bones and green one covered in flowers. "What, do you think I don't know your pain? That I haven't experienced family loss, or friend betrayals, or outcast sensations, too? When are you going to learn this isn't just about you? We're chess pieces in a much bigger plan here, and you're the prized Queen of the opposite color." He pointed a wild and shaking finger toward the main street, chest heaving up and down in sharp breaths. "Lucretia is going to keep attacking you, she wants something from you. No amount of you saying you're just 'waiting to die and spending time with my brother' is going to stop them."
"It's a mistake!" I half-screamed, but I couldn't cut the doubt out from my words. "That Vens was only saying what it could before death, you don't know if he was lied to or-"
"Or what?" Ari challenged with a snap. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a scrap of black fabric, the same the Vens had been
wearing. This piece had a patch on it, a thickly embroidered red heart with spikes emanating from the outer design, purple filled in the center. He threw it at my feet bitterly. "So sure he was lying now?"
I picked up the patch, turning it over in my hands. My voice was quiet. "Who's is this?"
"Who else, but Queen Lucretia."
A wave of lightheadedness passed over me, my throat drier than a desert as the sharp realization of things started to set in. Ari was right; no one was going to simply leave me be because my clock was running out faster than others. Going home in the middle of this unfinished would be putting everyone I knew in danger.
I wasn't sure how much more of this truth unveiling I could handle before I passed out. A shaky, ragged breath rattled my chest. "I'm sorry."
Arms wrapped around me, holding me close. "It's going to be okay." His body stiffened, muscles tensing in his arms like tightly bound wire. "We need to leave here, it's been too long. Come on." He let me go, taking me by the wrist and pulling me along the street.
"Wait, where are we going?" The heart shaped pendant around my neck started to glow.
"Just think of it as a safe house," he said in a hushed tone, taking us further out than I had ever been in Charon. The buildings had started to turn to darker and deeper shades of grey. For the first time I saw abandoned and damages homes, garbage scattered among the unkempt lawns. Thorny vines, black and deep red, twisted over any unused fixture.
I nearly tripped on the hem of Serena's dress, and cursed her out. Next time I'd make sure if she gave me clothes to only accept pants and shirts.
"It's right here," he said after what felt like an hour of navigating under the darkened sky. Now it was a striking dark navy blue, stars sprinkling the sky to provide a meager source of light. Against the night, I could barely make out the house, but the silhouette stood loud and clear, and left me breathless by the display.
Obumbrate (The Illumine Series) Page 11
