Nightwalkers

by Candace Wondrak

  Gabriel sighed. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  I threw the note in the trash after crumpling it. “Then let’s get this…whatever this thing is over with.”

  We walked out of the house and as Gabriel locked the door, he mumbled, “It should go without saying, but I hope Michael knows that I’m blaming him for this.” He threw me a look that twinkled in the bright, North Carolinian day.

  “Well, that makes two of us. You have any idea what this is?” I kicked a rock down the driveway. The pebble bounced as if it was a bouncy ball being bounced for the very first time.

  “I know as much as Grace Stewart did in the beginning of The Others.”

  “And I am choosing to ignore that.”

  The doors were thrown open to reveal something truly scary: a bat that flew right in my face. I ducked and frantically waved my hands above my head, giving the blonde behind me a good laugh or two. After I recovered from that suspenseful moment, and gave him a frown, I searched the decrepit church for any signs of life. The place looked like it needed a massive renovation.

  Thirty years ago.

  Today it was far beyond repair.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a trap. Maybe a group of Demons had overtaken Michael, forced him to write that note, and kidnapped him. Or, perhaps this was a test. I was about to voice my concern when we saw a man dressed in a priest’s uniform walk across the altar of the church, reading a book that appeared to be older than the church itself.

  And that was saying something.

  Gabriel coughed loudly, creating a seemingly endless echo throughout the entire church. It was a good thing that the bat had already flew out and startled me half to death, because if not, then we’d have a real problem on our hands.

  Funny how I could take on supernatural Demons, but a bat gave me a big case of the heebie-jeebies.

  Closing the book abruptly, the man’s attention was on us. “Ah, you must be Gabriel and Kassandra.” He walked slowly up to us and into the full light. The light revealed a young and proper looking man who must have been in his mid-twenties.

  I didn’t even know they made priests that young…not that they made priests at all, because that wasn’t how it worked. Not at all. Purifiers, though, we’re something else. Human, to be sure, but with a tad of God’s righteous power. It’s why we’re stronger than your average Human, a tad faster, too. Blessed at birth or something like that.

  “Yeah…hello, Father…” Gabriel got quiet, waiting for him to introduce himself to us.

  “What? Oh.” He glanced down at his clothing. “I am not ordained, so there is no need for either of you to call me Father.” His vibrant green eyes landed on me. With his light hair, pronounced cheek bones, and fair skin, he was a good-looking man.

  I felt a little guilty for thinking that of man in priest’s clothes, even if he wasn’t a real priest. Guilty, guilty, guilty. What had John done to me? I pushed those dirty thoughts from my mind.

  “Then why are you wearing that outfit?” Gabriel was suspicious, and didn’t even bother trying to hide it. “It’s a little weird, man.”

  “I am not a priest, but I am a servant of God, just as you both are. I wear this because I serve Him.” It was evident that this man found Gabriel irritating, for a look of disdain was on his face. “Now, I can tell you are wondering why I had Michael tell you to come here. I told him why, but I instructed him to keep silent. I trust he did so?” His green eyes sparkled with unmatched luminosity.

  “Has anyone ever said you talk like someone from the fourteenth century?” When the man didn’t answer, he continued, “He didn’t tell us anything. But from what the note said, I don’t think we’re going to like it.” Gabriel looked to me for confirmation. I gave him a nod.

  “Yes. That is most likely true. My name is Raphael, and all will be learned in time.” There was a pause in his explanation as his unique eyes disregarded Gabriel before returning to me. “Now, follow me. Your test awaits.”

  Gabriel and I exchanged a quick glance before tagging along.

  Why didn’t I like the sound of that?

  A test. I was going to have enough of them in school, so I didn’t see why I should have them outside school as well. Especially ones involving purifying Demons, that I’d done time and time again. But loads of past experience didn’t matter, not in Raphael’s eyes.

  So here I was, walking through a graveyard by myself. Gabriel and I had to scout it out, by ourselves. Separate. Alone. Which, to me, was a pretty monumental task, considering how big this particular cemetery was. A lot of people in this town died, apparently.

  But that wasn’t the only part of our test.

  No, because that would make things way too easy. We also had to find a Nightwalker and kill it. The only problem there was that this Nightwalker wasn’t walking around like idiots, as the two Purifiers were. The specific one we had to purify was still in the ground, and we had no idea who was the most recently deceased.

  This whole thing was pure ludicrousness.

  And, here’s the expired icing on the already crummy cake: Gabriel and I did not have a single weapon. How the hell were we supposed to purify this Nightwalker without our stakes? Sure, a few good kicks to the neck with our strong muscles would eventually crack the Demon’s spine and sever the head from the rest of the body…but that was a lot of work. It took a lot of time.

  On the bright side, we were allowed to covertly signal each other when we found this certain Nightwalker. That was about the only good thing we had going, since we weren’t allowed to leave until we purified it. Teamwork, and all that fun stuff.

  If you can call wandering the somewhat foggy town cemetery in the middle of a school night to purify a Nightwalker without a weapon fun stuff.

  My eyes scanned the rows and rows of graves, looking for any relatively new ones. Nightwalkers take various times to awaken. Sometimes it was mere minutes. Other times it can be days. One case even reported that it took a whole month to stir from its grave.

  But somehow our darling Raphael knew it would be tonight. How? I hadn’t a clue, not one freaking idea. The only thing I knew was that I already loved that man.

  Notice the sarcasm there.

  It was almost midnight, and my legs and eyes were tired, so naturally I took refuge on a giant gravestone. I felt a bit bad about putting my butt on this guy’s grave, but I figured he was dead, so what would he care?

  I dug my eyes into my hands and sighed. This had been a hell of a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. Add onto that the fact that I have to wake up at six tomorrow morning to get ready for school?

  Fantastic.

  My ears heard nothing.

  Which was weird. No birds. No crickets. Not a single thing.

  That could only mean one of two things: A) it was an abnormally quiet night or B) the Nightwalker had risen and was coming toward me.

  I speculated it was the second one, because a hot/humid night in this state was never quiet, so I leaped over to the next grave, landing on my feet. I stared in all directions and finally spotted the Nightwalker coming for me.

  Coming for me. Very, very slowly coming for me. He was slowly coming in my general direction, towards me, where I was standing. Waiting for him. Him being the Nightwalker that was coming for me, and me being the Purifier who was waiting for him to come here. Presumably he was coming here to drink my veins dry. Coming here for my blood. My blood being the thing he wanted. Which was why he was coming. Yep. This thing was definitely headed my way…

  Did I mention he was coming for me?

  And here I thought that after my mind ramble he would have made it to me, but things didn’t always work out the way you wanted them to. I learned that the hard way, many times. Came hand in hand with being a Purifier.

  But no. This one seemed perfectly intent on walking like a fricking zombie. Like a penguin. Like if a zombie and a penguin, through some miracle or twist of nature, had a baby, it would waddle like this thing. A penguin waddling with
both zombie speed and acceleration. And let me tell you, zombie acceleration is zero and zombie speed is about one foot every minute. Combine that with a penguin’s walking skill…I would say that clocks this poor blood sucker at about six inches per minute.

  Dear God, this Nightwalker was bizarrely slow! I let him have two whole mind rambles…and he still hadn’t reached me.

  “Fine, you stupid motherfu—” My voice froze.

  In a sharp turn of his head, his eyes flashed bright yellow and his face twisted; the Demon was barely human-looking anymore. His teeth were bared and spit was definitely being dripped. Disgusting. And then he ran after me in an abnormal show of speed.

  I sprinted in the opposite direction, cupped my hands over my mouth, and ca-cawed like a really, really sick crow. Raphael wanted us to take on this Nightwalker together, even though we were both more than capable of taking it on ourselves.

  It may be my opinion, but I think my words might have made him angry. Just maybe.

  I made the world’s most terrible bird noise once again, right before I turned a sudden corner into another row of gravestones.

  And also right into Gabriel, who was running in my direction. My bottom landed hard on the grass, and my face actually hurt from the impact of my face-chest collision. If Gabriel wasn’t so solid, so muscly, if he had a film of blubber on him, I wouldn’t have hurt so badly.

  “Kass.” Kneeling on the ground, Gabriel grabbed my hand and stared deep into my eyes.

  I knew exactly what was coming. Wasn’t it a little late for a Gabriel rant? I was allowed to drone on and on in my own head, but that didn’t mean I wanted to listen to him do the same out loud. I got enough of that on a daily basis. Why’d he have to make this so torturous for me?

  “I think this might be fate. Don’t you agree? I mean, running into you here, in a graveyard? What are the odds? I haven’t seen you since high school! I think it’s destined that we are going to fall in love, get married, have two and a half kids together, and our amazing love story will be made into one of those overacted Lifetime movies old people sit and watch together while drinking hot coco in the middle of a blizzard, to warm their old little hearts.”

  We stood. “Anything else?” I asked as I took my hand away from his unbelievingly warm and large one, throwing a glance over my shoulder.

  “Yes. I am currently unemployed, therefore your wedding ring will be extremely small, maybe a tiny, singular dust particle of the worst kind of diamond in the market. Maybe even one of those animal-shaped rubber band rings. Anyway, then we’ll move into my crappy motel room where the walls are paper thin. Literally. They’re made of paper. But none of that will matter, because we’ll have each other, and in a year your cookbook will be on the best seller charts, skyrocketing us both to fame and stardom. We’ll have many trials and tribulations…one where you even think I cheat. But it’ll turn out that I was only sneaking around to buy you the perfect wedding ring, to replace your other one—”

  I had to raise my eyebrows at that one. I looked around once more; the Nightwalker was nowhere in sight. Weird. Almost weird enough to take my mind from Gabriel’s nonstop ranting.

  “You’ll forgive me, we’ll have hot make-up sex, and we’ll get married by a real, ordained minister this time. And our theme will be: Star Wars. It’ll be a costume wedding. All the guests have to come in Star Wars regalia. It’ll be so much fun! We can have a costume contest, and everyone can vote! Even our six dogs! Whoever they sniff the most wins.”

  That was it. The last straw was passed about five minutes ago. I punched him in the gut. Not too hard, but hard enough to make him stop and bend over. Otherwise, I was afraid he might never stop. He’d started to act out what he was saying, getting way too into it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like seeing Gabriel acting like a little, shaking Chihuahua; it was just that now wasn’t the best time.

  “Too much time on your hands?” I asked while taking another glance around, starting to walk. Where was that damn Nightalker and why did I have a feeling that Raphael was going to have our necks for this?

  He held up his hand to his stomach. “If we could compare all my signs of boredom…that rendition right there would have killed my Anakin Skywalker sketches! Maybe even my papier-mâché Enterprise! Oh my God…it might have even beaten,” Gabriel shook the thought off. “No. Nothing could ever beat the life-size Stargate I built.”

  “And girls like you…why?”

  “Because I know how to woo.”

  “The fact that you just said the word woo—”

  The Nightwalker lunged at me from behind a tall grave, making my woo last for a good five seconds.

  “Hey ugly!” Gabriel yelled. The Nightwalker and I looked at him in amidst our struggle. “Not talking to you this time, Kass!” He started laughing as he picked the Nightwalker up and off me. Using his solid muscles, he threw the Demon and said, “Though I do like an ugly joke every now and then!”

  “You’re an ass.”

  Gabriel ran after the Nightwalker, who was in the process of standing up. “I know!” He started punching the Demon, and sounds of a fight entered the air around us. What welcoming sounds they were. “Tell me, how does it look? Round, firm…handsome?” After spinning in a roundhouse kick, he patted his butt.

  Oh…jeez.

  I frantically glanced everywhere for a weapon of some sort that we could use to purify it. We didn’t need one, but Raphael had given us specific parameters. We needed to purify the Nightwalker together with a weapon we took from our surroundings. Maybe our funding from the Council was decreasing and us Purifiers had to learn to be scrupulous.

  I spotted an American flag stuck in the ground by a nearby grave. I ran over and yanked it out. “Thank you, David Dennis. You served your country not only in life, but also in death.” I sprinted behind the Nightwalker and shoved the tiny wooden stick straight through its heart, up through the chest cavity to avoid the ribcage.

  Gabriel quickly dropped the Nightwalker on the ground as it caught fire and disappeared seconds after. Hell welcomed its Demons back speedily, that’s for sure. The fight had messed up his perfectly styled hair, and he endeavored in a desperate attempt to fix his golden locks, showing his vainness.

  I shook my head at him, saying, “How can a butt be handsome?”

  “What? No, Kass, I didn’t say that. Asses are appallingly ugly things! Just like feet, with their little finger-like toes…plain creepy when you think about it.”

  “Then how can—” I began my refute, but he held up a hand, stopping me cold.

  Gabriel interrupted me, something he does quite often, laughing out with a hint of sincerity, “You forget that everything on me is impossibly and ruggedly sexy.” He accompanied it with a shrug, as if that was that.

  “Oh. Right. I forgot. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I forgive you. Just don’t let it happen again.” I started laughing, but he interrupted my laughter too. “No, seriously. Don’t let it happen again.” His gallant face was completely humorless.

  “Alright! I won’t!” I rolled my eyes at him, whispering under my breath, “Ass.” Either Gabriel chose to ignore that last comment of mine or I was better as whispering than I thought. Whichever one was the truth, we turned to start heading back to the old church, but out path was intercepted by Raphael.

  The moonlight glimmered on his light hair, his features twisted into a mixture of anger and disappointment. Was he watching us this whole time? The man must have some skills of his own.

  “I do not know how you both survived unscathed.” Raphael had his arms crossed, and his eyebrows were creased to the point it looked unnatural. That was the first time I have ever seen a priest, or a guy in a priest’s outfit, cross his arms and scowl. It was strange.

  “You do know that we’ve been training for years, basically our entire lives, for encounters like that?” Gabriel posed the question, and Raphael responded by silently glaring. “Other th
an that, my sexiness definitely played a large part.” The blonde boy shifted his attention to me, like he forgot I was there. “And I guess teamwork always helps.”

  “You find yourself humorous, do you, Gabriel?” His lips were taut and slim, and took away some of his attractiveness. Not that I would call him attractive…oh, wait a moment. I already did. I was a sinner, I supposed.

  Gabriel thought for a moment. “Actually, I do. Not in a funny, comedian way. That’s overrated. More in an inside joke way, with a specialty in the shit you can’t stop yourself from chuckling at.”

  “I am surprised that your incessant rambling did not get you both killed,” Raphael stated matter-of-factly, effectively displaying whatever rage or disgrace he felt for us. “You are a very arrogant, conceited, and idiotic boy.”

  I laughed, because it was true. The guy in the priest’s neck piece had Gabriel pegged spot-on. It was an amazing thing. However, my outburst of joy was short, for when Raphael suddenly became aware of my presence, I stopped with a hastiness I never knew I was capable of.

  “And you. Don’t get me started with you. You stopped and rested while out patrolling. That’s something you never do, Kassandra. You stood there and watched the Demon walk toward you for far too long. That endangers not only you, but also Gabriel. You taunted it, which made it angry. I thought you would have learned by now to never taunt the Demons. And your stealthy bird call was absolutely appalling. Something like that in a real situation would have attracted more of them to your position.”

  And I think he said all that in one breath, too.

  In the light, I imagine he would have been red in the face. That was what he sounded like. I couldn’t believe he was yelling at me the most. Yeah, I made some mistakes, but come on. He yelled at me about my bird call and how bad it was. It’s not like I was trained for years, perfecting every birdcall known to man. That’d just be freaking ridiculous.