Nightwalkers

by Candace Wondrak

  Nightwalkers

  Candace Wondrak

  © All Rights Reserved.

  Chapter One - Kass

  “You look terrible.”

  Its response—a blank stare.

  I tilted my head, saying, “Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you should skip out on moisturizing. A little bit of lotion could go a long way for you.”

  Another stare.

  “And where’d you get those clothes?” I directed the question at its hideous, torn up apparel. “Did you miss the ugly shirt convention and decide to go to the seizure-inducing pattern conference instead?”

  Well, so much for making my last purification here fun. Tonight was pretty much the last night of summer. And also my last night here in Milsburry. Which, as much as it didn’t sadden me to say, was fine with me. After all, this town had been getting a little boring, especially since Gabriel and I had gotten rid of all the evil.

  Cheesy? Yes. It was. I realized it’s very cheesy.

  In fact, Gabriel was already settled in with Michael in Greenville, North Carolina. And that was on the other side of America. Tonight was my flight, but I had to finish up here first. I volunteered to stay back and handle the last of it.

  I looked at my watch.

  And, before anyone can make any snap judgements, yes, I said watch. Why? Because in the thick of the fight, they were easier to glance at than a cell phone. When fighting three Nightwalkers, personally I always found it much better to glance at my watch then ask the Demons to hold off for a minute while I pull out my cell to check if I was going to be late for dinner.

  Seven o’clock.

  “Alright. Much as I hate to say it, we have to finish this now, or I’m going to be late to my flight, and we both know how bad air travel is these days.” I reached in my coat for a wooden stake. Without a pause, I lunged at him. Or, I supposed I should say, it. Because technically it wasn’t a him anymore. In reality, it didn’t matter what I thought, though.

  A Demon was a Demon, and in this case, a Nightwalker was a shriveled, blood-crazed, skin-craving Demon with extra pointy teeth.

  The stake would have landed right on the area where its heart was—if it was alive and had one…except I encountered a teeny, weeny problem with that. The Nightwalker grabbed my hand at the last second, preventing me from purifying it right there.

  “Now this is what I’m talking about!” I yelled as it twisted my hand with force, causing me to drop the stake. It kept its hold on my one arm and spun around, lifting me off the ground.

  All I could think was: I hadn’t been lifted in a while. This Hawaiian shirt wearing Nightwalker was stronger than he looked. They were Demons, after all, so they had hidden strengths the naked eye couldn’t see.

  After a few moments it let go, and I crashed into the door of a nearby mausoleum, cracking it wide open.

  Crap.

  If Koath, my old Guardian was here, he’d probably kill me himself, though God tended to frown on that sort of behavior by his so-called servants. We weren’t supposed to destroy our surroundings when we were in a battle against supernatural forces like Demons, because it could give the cops clues to our existence. And every Purifier had been taught since day one that wouldn’t be good. But it wasn’t my fault that the Nightwalker in need of a serious makeover threw me here.

  And it wasn’t like I didn’t normally break everything around me, because I totally did.

  Quite often actually. Nearly every time. Come to think of it, it was a miracle the police hadn’t discovered the existence of Purifiers yet. Whether they knew it or not, we worked well together. They took care of the human evildoers, and we dealt with the Demonic ones.

  I leapt up in one insanely sweet Buffy-like move. Grabbing the extra stake in my coat, I waited by the entrance for the Nightwalker to come in.

  Moments passed, and all the while I heard not a single noise, so I decided to venture out, cautiously. I was always cautious. Sometimes. Well, when I remembered to be cautious, which, now that I was thinking about it, wasn’t as often as I’d like to admit.

  Anyways, what did my little eyes see as soon as I stepped out?

  Nothing. Nothing except the back of its shockingly appalling shirt that should never have been woven. And why was this Nightwalker, who had a seriously bad taste in clothes when it was still a human, showing me its back?

  It was walking away, like it thought I wasn’t a challenging kill or something.

  The nerve of some Nightwalkers these days. It felt like it was only yesterday when they had the decency to relentlessly attack over and over until a stake in the heart.

  Ah, wait a moment, that was yesterday.

  After getting in quarterback position, I threw the stake—which was a perfect spiral—and yelled, “Hey ugly!”

  It turned around just in time.

  Feeling quite happy with myself and my throw, I walked up to it and watched flame engulf its wrinkly face and, unfortunately, my stake. “Maybe next time you’ll remember not to walk away from me, though it would’ve ended like this either way, I guess…and now I’m talking to myself in a graveyard. Great.”

  In a few seconds I stood there staring at nothing but grass. I turned and headed for the road when I noticed my first stake. “No, officer, I’m not crazy. I was just fighting a Nightwalker, basically saving your life, not that you’ll ever know,” I mocked myself as I picked it up.

  Normally I lost both my stakes, so I considered this one a win.

  With pep in my step, I finished up and was on my flight within the hour.

  “What is taking her so bloody long?” Michael asked, delirious from waiting. He rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. His short, dark hair was messy and sticking every which way, meaning he probably didn’t get a wink of sleep last night because he was too busy worrying about me.

  Isn’t that just a disgusting display of Guardian-Purifier sentiment?

  “It’s Kass we’re talking about. She’s always late.” Gabriel shrugged his broad shoulders. “Let’s be honest here: she missed her flight because she took too much time finishing off the list of recently decease—”

  Michael coughed, signaling to the crowd of people that were walking past them in the airport.

  “—deceiving squirrels,” Gabriel caught himself, acting totally serious as he went on, “they act all cute, fluffy and innocent, and then you try to catch them and all bets are off, and the next thing you know you wake up in a hospital diagnosed with rabies, strange as it sounds.”

  I silently walked up behind them, and I couldn’t believe it. They thought I was late? That I missed my flight? That I spent too much time finishing off the list?

  Well, alright. That last part was true, besides the whole squirrel concoction Gabriel just pulled out of his ass. That was something that boy liked to do often, nearly three times every hour.

  But I caught my flight. Barely. That last part, though, they didn’t need to know.

  Shaking my head, I snuck up behind them and marveled at their incredible unawareness. If I was a Nightwalker, they’d be dead meat. Although, if I was a Nightwalker, I’d burn up on account of the sunlight and all that.

  “I can’t believe you guys. You have no faith in me whatsoever, do you?” I asked, handing Michael one of my suitcases.

  The overly-tall, six-and-a-half-foot blonde next to the tired Englishman grinned. “Wow, look who’s right. We have to mark this occasion, since it’s the first time you’ve been right in your entire life. Trust me, I’d know. I’ve been with you through every false step—” He stopped when I smacked his arm. “Fine, back to your reward. Would you like a crumpled cookie or a slightly used tissue?” Gabriel grabbed my second suitcase as pure, unadulterated thoughtfulness swept across his face.

  Su
ch sarcasm. I only arrived a few seconds ago, and this was how they treat me? Ridiculous. “What kind of cookie?” I asked while giving him a glare that would freeze even the most sinister Nightwalker.

  Michael adjusted his glasses, something he always did, and began walking out of the airport. “I’m assuming peanut butter, since that is the only kind he can seem to make without burning the whole kitchen down.” His English accent made everything he said sound so regal. He unlocked the trunk of his black jeep and lifted my suitcase.

  “You know what they say about assuming, Michael. Makes an ass out of you and me. In this case though—” Gabriel handed him my luggage he was carrying and received a humorous look from Michael. “—you’re not wrong. But let me remind you that was only one time. How was I supposed to know that cookies don’t bake three times as fast at three times the temperature?”

  Michael slammed the trunk down and glared at Gabriel. It was clear to me that the memory of his burnt kitchen was still raw. “Common sense?” He walked to the driver’s seat and opened the door.

  “Common sense?” Gabriel echoed as he sat in the passenger’s seat, much to my dismay.

  Why? That meant I was the one sitting in the back, alone, which sucked.

  “I was ten!” Gabriel threw his hands up in the air after buckling his seatbelt. “I had about as much common sense as a girl in a horror movie! The fact that they were chocolate chip cookies was pure happenstance.”

  I watched the scenery fly by. This place actually had trees. And grass that wasn’t brown. Weird. Definitely not what I was used to. “And you never tried making chocolate chip cookies after that?” As I asked the question, I mentally told myself to not laugh aloud. That would only egg him on.

  The blonde boy turned to look at me, craning his neck at an ungodly angle to achieve it. “Are you joshing me? I was traumatized! I still am! Sometimes I have nightmares where the fire and the ashes of the kitchen hold hands and sing Ring Around the Rosie!”

  I nodded. “Yeah, sure. And you do know that you saying joshing is not going to bring it back in, right?” Gabriel always tried bringing things back in when they were totally out. He took all the credit for the skinny jeans phase of society. And a guy with a build like that in skinny jeans was not a sight you would want to see, trust me.

  Though I did keep a picture for future blackmail purposes, just in case.

  All I could say was thank God he got out of that and wore normal jeans now. It wasn’t that he was fat; there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. It’s just that he was too tall to wear skinny jeans, too muscular.

  Gabriel acted grossly offended, saying, “Oh, you know everything I do is in. It’s only a matter of time before society realizes that snakeskin is better than gatorskin, zigzags are better than stripes—no matter what the direction—and the sasquatch is more real than Donald Trump’s hair.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with any of those, Gabriel,” I said slowly, knowing how stubborn he could be. Then again, I’d been told I could be equally, if not more, stubborn.

  “Fine, but that’s pure ignorance. I hope you know that,” he mumbled as he settled into his seat.

  “Oh, whatever.” I rolled my eyes and closed them shortly after. Apparently we had a few hours to drive before reaching Greenville. And I had jetlag of the biggest proportions.

  A low, scratchy voice entered my head, whispering in a creepily, “As you sleep, you are helpless…which means I can finally succeed in killing you—”

  Not knowing what was happening, I instinctively punched the owner of the spooky voice, stopping him immediately. Gabriel’s groaning caused my eyes to fly open. For being a tall, muscly guy, he certainly could act like a baby sometimes.

  “What the hell, Kass?” he yelled, gripping the side of his face as if the punch was backed with true strength.

  Unbuckling my seatbelt, I apologized, “Sorry.”

  His deep blue eyes glared at me. “Who the hell wakes up like that?”

  My utter silence was my answer. That was, until I jumped out of the car and got in his face, which meant I had to tilt my head at nearly a ninety degree angle due to the obscene height difference between us. “Who the hell wakes someone up like that? A simple ‘Kass, we’re here’ would have been just fine!”

  “Says the girl who wanted a crossbow for her tenth birthday.”

  I shook my head, letting my brown hair cover my eyes for only a moment before saying, “What does that have to do with this?”

  “Besides that you have violent tendencies? Nothing.” My eyebrows rose. “No, really, absolutely nothing. I’m not hinting to a hidden meaning, or anything absurd like that. It’s just that where most girls were obsessed with a boy, you were obsessed with weapons. Not normal.”

  An unbelieving sigh escaped me. “Like you’re the model for normal?”

  “Let’s see,” Gabriel paused as he leaned on the car beside me and took a tapping finger to his square chin, “when I was ten, the only thing I wanted was—”

  “Gabriel,” I told him flatly, “the whole world knew what you wanted. Hell, you still want it.”

  Shrugging, he said, “I like girls.” My oh-come-on stare prompted him further, “Okay, I love them. Sue me. But be warned, I’ll win that lawsuit, and that means I get an hour alone with you, clothes optional.” With a wink, he turned and walked up towards the house. After a few steps, he stopped and asked, “What do you think?”

  My fuming mind about his last comment quickly dissipated when I noticed the giant house that stood behind him. “Holy…” I trailed off.

  Michael’s new house was snuggled in between huge trees, and it reminded me of a small mansion. The house had three floors and one giant, multi-story window in its front. The front door looked like it had been taken straight off a castle’s wall, rustic and medieval. The wood was antique, the design was beautiful, to say the least.

  How the heck were we supposed to be inconspicuous in a house like this? As I wondered this, Gabriel and I made it to the stunningly gorgeous front door, where Michael was waiting for us.

  He opened it, revealing a well-designed interior. My mouth dropped somewhat, triggering Michael to say, “Don’t worry, Kass, I’ll make Gabriel give you a tour.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, well, I think I might need a daily tour of this place. It’s huge.”

  Gabriel was quick to say, “That’s what you’ll say after I win that lawsuit.” He coughed as he received a slightly confused and disturbed glance from Michael.

  As he took his dark eyes off the blonde boy, Michael was slow to say, “I’m going to ignore that incredibly inappropriate comment because I don’t want to know.” His proper stare returned to me. “I’m not used to this house yet either, and I’ve been living here for a month.”

  “Fantastic,” I said with sarcasm dripping from my voice. The facetious rant I had implanted in my head about how that meant getting lost in this house was going to be a daily occurrence was cut through by Gabriel, who slipped his arm around mine.

  “Come on, I’ll show you your room,” Gabriel began when he started dragging me up the stairs. Literally. “Luckily for you, our rooms are right across the hall from each other.”

  I was unaware of why that was a good thing. If anything, it was terrible. Awful, even. Having my room that close to his was not a good thing! He was a teenage boy, and I was a teenage girl. Granted, we’d basically spent every living moment with each other ever since I could remember, but it was troubling nonetheless.

  We ended up on the third floor. He twisted a doorknob to our right and pushed the door open. “If I ever get a little horny in the middle of the night, I can guarantee you that you will be my first choice as a booty call.” He grinned. “And not just because you’re the closest.”

  Choosing to sigh out my anger, I took one look at the room and my jaw nearly hit the floor. It was amazing. It must have been taken straight out of the same castle that the front door was. The curtains on the window appeared as if they were real v
elvet, the bed had a canopy, the furniture was very ornate.

  They trusted me with all this fancy stuff? Didn’t they know I broke everything I touched?

  I slowly made my way to the bed and sat down. All I could think was: wow.

  “Ahem.” Gabriel pointed.

  As if there wasn’t already enough furniture in my room, I followed his finger to see a colossal flat screen television across from my king-size bed. “Oh my God.”

  He laughed, presumably at me and my incredulousness, and I could forgive that, since he did it all the time. But what I couldn’t forgive was what he said next:

  “And, just in case you aren’t happy enough with our rooms being so close, you also have the privilege…no, the honor—no, the God-given duty of sharing a bathroom with me.”

  “What?” I stood up.

  “Is your jetlag affecting your hearing? I said—”

  I held up a hand. I couldn’t believe he was going to repeat himself. This ‘sharing of a bathroom’ thing was not going to happen. In a flash I was running down the stairs, yelling to Michael, “Why do I have to share a bathroom with him?”

  Michael looked up from cutting the meatloaf that was for dinner. “Um, because you’re not using mine?”

  “But,” I looked towards the stairs, where Gabriel appeared, looking not worried. As usual. “I’m a girl, and he’s a guy.” Way to point out the obvious, Kass. Way to go. Points for originality.

  “Believe it or not, I am aware of the bodily differences of you two.”

  Stamping my foot, I cut in, “And he’s gross!” More points for sounding like a two-year old.

  “Whoa, I think I have to step in here, Kass.” Gabriel sat at the kitchen table and folded his napkin. Michael set the meatloaf down and took his place. It’d be gone in less than ten minutes.

  Reluctantly, I took to my seat next to Gabriel.

  “I’m actually very hygienic. My breath is minty fresh and I make sure my teeth sparkle. And I always have a case of white Tic-Tacs in my pocket.” The blonde chose his slice of meat and placed it on his plate. “Well,” he thought for a moment, “that, or peppermint Altoids.”