When I had emptied the bottle, I formed the water into the shape of a gun, and held it by the butt, wrapping my finger around the liquid trigger.
At the front of the plane, there was a monitor showing the plane’s position on a radar map. Pointing the gun toward the screen, I willed a small bullet of water to shoot out.
Both Jenny and Thomas turned their heads when the water bullet hit the monitor with enough force to crack the glass. The image flicked on and off a few times before going completely blank.
Jenny narrowed her eyes at me.
Holding the empty bottle in my other hand, I willed the water gun to turn into a fountain. The arc of water rose high above me, almost touching the ceiling, and then fell into the narrow opening of the bottle.
I took a sip of the water and met Jenny’s stare.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Thomas holding his hand over his mouth to hide a laugh.
* * *
For the rest of the flight, as well as the trip from the airport to Anak Acres, Jenny remained silent.
When we arrived at the ranch, she immediately went to her room and didn’t come out for the rest of the day.
As we went to the dining room for lunch, Thomas said, “She just needs to get over herself.”
I was happy I didn’t have to see her. There was another person I was expecting to see, but didn’t. When an older woman came in to bring us a plate of sandwiches, I asked Thomas, “Where’s Jethro?”
Waiting until the new servant left the room, he said, “Once Sam found out that he hit me, he dismissed Jethro from service.”
“But he was just doing what he thought was best for the Grigori.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re his superiors. According to Sam, mortals need to understand we’re not to be harmed for any reason.”
I frowned.
Thomas noticed my reaction. He said, “I know, in this country, we’ve all been brought up to believe everyone has the same rights, but that only applies to regular people. We’re more than human—we’re Anakim: descended from Nephilim. Angel blood runs through our veins.”
“It’s just hard to think of myself as anything but a normal person.”
He laughed. “Believe me, there’s nothing normal about what we can do.” Taking a bite of his sandwich, he said, “Eat up; you’re going to need it. After lunch, we start your training.”
* * *
Over the next two days, Thomas put me through my paces.
Before we started, he explained that I needed to learn how to breathe. I laughed at that—I knew how to breathe; I’d been doing it all my life.
He showed me how to breathe properly so that I could center myself and focus my concentration. It took me all afternoon to learn the lesson. When I finally got it, my ability to direct the power improved so much it was like night and day.
Before, when I’d used my talents, it had taken quite an effort. I’d been left feeling exhausted afterward.
Once I was able to relax and allow the power to flow through me—Thomas said this was the ‘surrendering’ part they’d been talking about—I found that I was able to use my abilities with the barest hint of a thought.
Thomas told me he spent a lot of his free time reading about the supernatural gifts the hosts received from the Grigori who possessed them. He wanted to know the extent of my talents.
The next day, we worked on what he called combat training. He called my ability to shape water ‘hydrokinesis’. There was a stream running through one corner of the property, and we spent a few hours there. I practiced moving small and large amounts of water. First, I created fountains, and then formed more complicated shapes, like the water gun on the plane. Soon, I made a miniature horse and willed it to gallop back and forth over the stream.
I was able to control the current. It was relatively easy to create a dam, and stop the water from flowing, but it took me a few tries to reverse the stream and make it go backwards. Thomas said he thought the amount of effort I needed to use depended on the volume of water. We did a few more tests to be sure.
On the airplane, I’d made the water hard, forming it into a bullet. That seemed easier than doing the opposite, turning a quantity of water to mist, which turned out to be useful for the next part of my training.
On the second day, Thomas told me I needed to develop ways to defend myself.
I became quite good at surrounding myself with a suit of armor made of hardened water. When my father had died, this was what had saved me from the explosion. The hydroarmor could stop bullets, resist the heat from a blowtorch and the cold from a deep freezer, and block sound and smells, if I chose.
While I was able to create enough armor from a bottle of water—which I’d made a point of carrying with me everywhere—it wasn’t always practical to have a bottle with me. With prompting from Thomas, I turned the water into a fine mist and then made myself absorb it through my skin. I didn’t mind carrying a little extra water weight; I was always too skinny anyway.
Thomas said, “Now, practice releasing the water in you and make the hydroarmor. Careful not to release too much.” He laughed. “You don’t want to dehydrate.”
It only took me two tries to do it. As it turned out, doing it that way was faster than using the bottle. I could defend myself in an instant, now.
The third day, Thomas said he wanted to work on the other talent. “In some ways, your intuition could prove to be more powerful than your ability to control water.”
“How can the intuition be more powerful? All I get are warnings that could mean anything. I have to interpret them. Quite a few times, I’ve been wrong.”
Thomas said, “Maybe the intuition is only the tip of the iceberg.” He smiled. “It’s possible that you might be able to develop hydromancy.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s using water to know what’s going on beyond your normal range of perception. Clairvoyance by scrying.”
For the rest of the day, I stared at pools of water, hoping to catch a vision of anything other than my own reflection, but no matter how much I concentrated, nothing happened.
When I wasn’t training to use my water ability, I took riding lessons with one of the horses they kept on the ranch. At first, I was frightened by how large he was. Once I got over that, I realized the horse was one of the most affectionate and gentle creatures I’d ever met. I fell in love with him.
* * *
Though Jenny had been around for the past couple of days, it was only on the fourth morning we were back at Anak Acres that she spoke to me.
“I’ve had some time to think about it,” she said to me when she caught me on my way to the bathroom to shower. “I shouldn’t have done what I did to your stepfather. I thought I was doing you a favor.”
I stared at her. “By killing him?”
“After I heard about what he did to your mother, and how he abused you, maybe I guess I started to think of him like my uncle.” Her eyes hardened. “My uncle deserved it.”
I didn’t want to admit that I thought my stepfather needed to be punished, but my thoughts had always run to life in prison. Maine didn’t have capital punishment, and considering the fact that I was usually on the wrong side of the system, I never thought much of the death penalty. Certainly, nothing I ever did—or thought I would do—would justify that.
In the past few weeks, I’d come to realize there was a lot more evil in the world than what my stepfather had shown me. Still, I wasn’t convinced that killing anyone was the right thing to do.
I didn’t want to debate Jenny. Her past had made her what she was, and nothing I said was going to change her mind.
Now, she was extending the olive branch. Since I couldn’t avoid her as long as I was part of the Grigori organization, I would have to make the best of it. I don’t think I had it in me to forgive her, but maybe we could put it in the past.
“All right,” I said by way of accepting her apology. Feeling confident that I was truly far more p
owerful than she was, I pointed a finger at her. “But no more killing.”
Without hesitation, Jenny said, “Of course. Whatever you say, goes.”
I remembered Sam telling me that my Grigori, Ananiel, was one of the greater angels, one of the twenty leaders. The minor angels, like robots, were hard-wired to obey the orders of their superiors.
When Jenny thought I didn’t have control over my abilities, she’d taken advantage and tried to boss me around. Now, she was aware that things were different.
In light of that, I felt confident that I’d put Jenny in her place.
* * *
At breakfast, Thomas said he had to go to Salt Lake City on an errand for head office, and that he’d be gone all day.
After he left, Jenny suggested that we go to the Anakim quarters so I could properly introduce myself to them. I knew I hadn’t left a very good impression last time.
Before we got halfway there, my gut twisted as electricity exploded inside me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In an instant, I covered myself in my suit of water armor so that Jenny wouldn’t be able to touch me.
I knew, in my heart, she’d been waiting like a viper, ready to strike when the moment was right. I was glad for the practice Thomas had made me do over the past few days.
A split-second after I threw up my defenses, Jenny slammed on the brakes. I flew forward and hit the dashboard so hard that, if I hadn’t raised the hydroarmor, I would probably have cracked my skull or broken my ribs. As it was, it felt more like I’d flopped against a mattress.
I recovered right away and flung open the passenger door, jumping out and turning back to see what Jenny was going to try.
To my surprise, she wasn’t paying attention to me. She was staring straight forward, and her face was set with fear. Jenny wasn’t the one who’d set a trap for me.
Following her line of sight, I turned my head to see what she was looking at.
Ahead, the road curved gently around a steel shed.
Beyond the curve, Thomas’s truck was parked at an odd angle off to the side.
He was lying in the middle of the road.
He wasn’t alone.
Three other people—adults—were standing near him.
On one side of Thomas, a thin, blond-haired young man and a slightly older, dark-haired man stood together. Their arms hung loosely at their sides, but I could tell they were anything but relaxed.
It was the person on the other side of Thomas who got my attention. She took a few steps toward us. Long, red hair flared around her head. She was tall and confident—not the kind of overconfidence Jenny had shown when I first met her.
What stunned me was not the aura of power radiating from her, it was the fact that I’d seen her die.
She was the woman my father had tried to save when the sheriff of Middleton had shot him. She was the one in the newspaper article I’d found in my father’s locker.
Darcy Anderson.
How was she still alive?
Then I figured it out. She was a host, like us. Fallen angels must have possessed her and her two friends. That electric explosion I felt when my gut twisted was the internal radar that told me when other Grigori were near.
My thoughts raced. What was going on?
“Serena!” Jenny jumped out of the truck. “Get back in the truck. They’re rogues. They hunt down and kill Grigori hosts. They killed Thomas.”
The redheaded woman said something, but she was too far away for me to hear.
Jenny pointed at her. “She’s here to kill us.”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t believe that was what was happening. Thomas! I had a flash of a thought. Had Darcy Anderson lured my father to his death?
My hydroarmor still in place, I took a few steps forward. I could feel rage growing inside me. Thomas didn’t deserve to be killed by these rogues. Remembering the lessons he’d taught me, I moved some of the water from the armor to my hand, and formed a gun.
The woman took another step toward me, and pointed back at Thomas. She raised her other hand up, palm open.
“Serena,” she said, “it’s not what it looks like. We’re friends. We’re here to rescue you.”
Rescue me? From what? And how did she know my name?
“She’s lying.” Jenny came up beside me. She pointed a finger at the woman accusingly. “Murderer!”
The woman shook her head. “He’s hurt, not dead. It was a misunderstanding.”
“Liar!” Jenny screamed. To me, her voice pleading, she said, “I know about them; Sam told me. That woman burned her parents alive while they slept and spent ten years in prison. Do you remember that explosion after she got your father killed? That was her. She destroyed half the town.
“The blond guy is Richard Riley. He killed his parents and then took out a city block with a tornado. Who knows how many people he’s killed?
“The other man must be Kyle Chase; he’s the one who’s working for the Society of Exorcists. Those priests have been torturing and imprisoning any Grigori they can’t convert to their cause. Don’t you remember? Sam told you all about them.”
Taking a step closer to me, Jenny let out a hollow laugh. “You might think I’m a bitch for what I did to your stepfather, but they”—she pointed at them—“are mass murderers. They’re here to kill us all.”
Darcy called out, “We’re not going to hurt you, Serena. Your friend needs help.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t decide who was telling the truth. What Jenny said made sense. My gut had turned sour the moment my radar detected the three rogues. It was an obvious warning.
But if Darcy were telling the truth, and Thomas was alive, I had to help him. Was it a trick?
I stood there with the gun of water still in my hand, but made no move to use it.
Jenny’s eyes showed her fear. “The Grigori they host are all elementals,” she said. “Greater angels. We don’t stand a chance against them. Serena, we have to run now, before it’s too late.”
All the confidence I had gained over the past few days started to drain from me. I might be more powerful than Jenny or Thomas, but if it was true that these three had done the things Jenny said, how could I fight them? I was outnumbered, and I’d only been practicing my talents for a short while.
The one thing that stopped me from running from them was that none of the three looked like they were summoning their power, either for defense or for attack.
“Move away from Thomas,” I called out. “Get back.”
“No,” Jenny said, her voice cracking with desperation. “She’s the reason your father died; she must have led him into a trap. You were there. She’s like one of those black widows or something.”
Darcy shook her head. “I can explain everything. I didn’t have anything to do with your father dying.” She spoke in a lower tone, but I still heard her when she said, “I loved him.”
She began to walk backward, her steps slow but steady, and when she rejoined the two men, she motioned for them to back away as well. Behind them, there was a beige car with the doors open. It must have been their vehicle. The three stopped halfway to the car.
I moved the water from the gun in my hand back to the armor—I wasn’t going to take a chance—and then hurried to Thomas’s side. Jenny didn’t follow me. She raced back to her pickup, as if it would shield her from a surprise attack.
As I got closer, I saw Darcy had not been lying. Thomas was alive. I could see the rise and fall of his chest.
“What happened?” I asked.
The blond man said, “He tried to use a song on us before we could explain ourselves.” He gave me a pained look. “I just took his breath away for a second. He should regain consciousness soon, but he’ll probably have sore lungs and a whopper of a headache.”
I knelt beside Thomas and put my hand on his chest. He was breathing shallow, like he was in a deep sleep.
“How did you know what he was going to do?” I looked at Darcy. “How do
you even know who we are?”
Before she could answer, an explosion went off close to me, and an impossibly loud roar split the air. My stomach had not settled down throughout the entire conversation, so there was no way for me to know what was coming.
I saw a ball of fire spring from between Darcy’s hands. A swirling tornado of air formed in front of Richard. The ground trembled around Kyle. Rocks vibrated, and a cloud of dust grew out of the earth.
They were all summoning their power.
It had been a trap all along, just like Jenny had warned me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My hydroarmor was still up around me, and I felt confident that it would shield me from the worst of any attack. I’d used all my reserves of water on it, and didn’t have any left to use to fight the three others.
Instinctively, I reached out with my will and drew moisture out of the air around me. It wasn’t a very humid day, and my range wasn’t great, but I was able to draw enough water to reform the gun.
Before I took aim at any of the three, I saw that none of them were looking in my direction.
It was then that I realized that first explosion wasn’t from any supernatural weapon. It had been from a grenade—the kind that let off a big flash and loud noise, designed to stun the target.
A few hundred feet down the road, two black pickup trucks raced toward us. In the back of one of them, a man—it was Billy—was loading another grenade in a hand-held launcher.
Two other men were in the cab of the truck, and three more rode in the second vehicle. It looked as if they all had rifles or shotguns.
What were they thinking? Surely, they knew what kind of powers the Grigori had at their disposal. My water armor would be able to stop bullets; I was sure Darcy and her friends had ways to defend themselves against this kind of attack.
Perhaps, if they’d gone up against one host, they might have had a chance, but against three…?
Billy launched another grenade. My immediate thought was for Thomas, who was still unconscious and could not defend himself. Putting myself between Thomas and the fighters, I reabsorbed the gun and used the extra moisture I had gathered and extended the hydroarmor around him.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 74
