Nightwalkers

by Candace Wondrak

  I spun on my heel and started walking ever so slowly away from her house, making sure I gave her enough time to think about it before doing so. “Three. Two. One,” I whispered to myself. I could time her so well. It came with practice.

  The front door opened, creaking in its swing. “John,” Kass’s voice spoke quietly, evenly. She was ready for whatever would come, I knew.

  I stopped walking away and turned to face her. Even in this circumstance, I still wanted to have her. I wanted to throw her down on the stone driveway and have all of her. How sad was that? I was pathetic.

  I stepped closer to her. “Kass,” I said, still acting clueless. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?” Damn, was I a fantastic actor or what?

  I had a lot of practice.

  “Why do you think?” Her hand gripped her sword tighter. That confirmed my suspicions. Why the hell else would she have a sword in her hand if she didn’t know the truth about me? “Because I know.”

  She held the sword as though she were an expert in it. It would seem I wasn’t the only actor around here. She wasn’t as helpless as she appeared.

  “How do you know?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know, so that if in the future, this happened again, I could avoid this part. My ignorant façade was gone, washed away in what I knew appeared as arrogance.

  A strange laugh escaped her. “It’s pretty obvious, now that I’m thinking about it.”

  Was it? I wanted to yell to her. Damn it. Either it was obvious, or she was just good.

  The look on her face made me feel terrible. It made me regret it all. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t be doing this now, here. The thought should never have crossed my mind. What was wrong with me?

  I took another step closer to her, this time feeling really bad about myself. “I wanted to tell you. But I couldn’t.” I was strangely desperate for her to believe me. And I didn’t care anymore.

  “Whatever,” Kass spat out, the hate in her voice was tangible. “I just can’t believe—”

  I saw a light spiraling toward us.

  Chapter Thirty – Kass

  Knock, knock. I peeped through the window, seeing who it was, even though I knew. Better he come to me than me go looking for him, I guessed. Saved me time and energy.

  “Kass,” John yelled so loud that I heard him through the door, “I need to talk to you.”

  I crouched down, below the window, gripping my rose blade as I began formulating a plan. He couldn’t come in, but I could go out.

  “Kass, I know you can hear me. I think you should come out so we can finish this.”

  I smirked. He thought he knew all there was to know? He thought he had me pegged for someone I wasn’t? John was about to learn the hard way not to be so smug.

  I peeked out the window. John had turned and had started walking down the driveway. That son of a bitch was walking away. Not if I could help it.

  Standing, I moved to the door and yanked it open after unlatching the locks. I stepped outside, away from the safety of the house and out of the incantation Michael and Raphael had done. “John,” I spoke his name like it was acid on my tongue, slowly walking down the steps to his level.

  Despite it all, everything I’d learned and grown to accept in the last day, my heart still fluttered in my chest the moment he spun around.

  “Kass,” he said, walking up to me, acting completely oblivious to the sword in my hand. Or maybe he chose to ignore it. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?” I hated that I found him attractive still, that his dark eyes drew me in like they had every day I’d known him, that I wanted nothing more than to drop my sword, say ‘forget about it’ and kiss him to make up for that day in his car.

  But I couldn’t do any of that.

  “Why do you think?” I asked, just for kicks to see if he would own up to anything. His face was clueless, so I gave him one. “Because I know.”

  His handsome face twisted in confusion and then realization. “How do you know?” For the first moment, he didn’t look like the John I knew. He looked older, darker, a man harboring many secrets.

  I laughed, even though nothing was funny. “It’s pretty obvious, now that I’m thinking about it.”

  “I wanted to tell you. But I couldn’t,” John whispered, intensity in his gaze.

  I held up the hand that was sword-free. “Whatever. I just can’t believe—”

  For some reason, John felt the urge to move me. Instead of attacking like any Demon-spawn or soon-to-be-soulless would, he swapped places with me, so that I was standing where he had been and he was standing where I was. Then I saw it.

  The light. The same light I’d seen in my dreams. Spiraling to us. John must have seen it too, and that was why he traded spots with me. But…why? Why would he do that if he was a part of it?

  It must have been too late for the light to switch courses, because the radiance flew straight into John’s back and didn’t come out again.

  I just stared at John’s stomach, mouth agape, hoping that that didn’t really happen. I looked up at John. His eyes were glazing over. Instead of being their usual brown, they were black. And not just the pupil. The whole eye was black.

  No.

  This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. Was this…was it all a big misunderstanding? Was John not truly evil? I was horrified. Had I mistaken the meaning of my visions?

  John slowly released his grip on me and clawed at his own neck, probably trying to breath. I remembered the way it felt in my dream. The way the darkness felt as it took over my every move, my every thought, making me lust for violence. Making me want to kill. Making me go insane until there was nothing left.

  His blackened eyes fell upon me. I stared at him, my sword growing heavier in my grip.

  “John,” I spoke extremely quietly, “I’m sorry. This…is my fault.”

  His blood turned black; I could see his veins start to darken. His skin was getting darker too, greying. The evil was spreading rapidly. There was no time for me to feel sorry for myself or him any longer. I had to finish this while there was still time.

  The wind whipped my hair around, making it flail wildly. “I’m so sorry,” I said one, final time, my heart hardening in preparation of what I had to do.

  My first boyfriend wasn’t going to kill me. I was going to kill him.

  In that split-second, I came full circle about all my visions and dreams. The signs had been there all along. I just read them wrong. And because of that, John had to die.

  My eyes were dry as I lifted the sword and pushed it through his heart.

  Chapter Thirty-One – John

  I had flipped us. Now that I was thinking about it, now that I was feeling it, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea on my part. This thing hurt like hell. I growled and howled, feeling my eyes changing.

  Damn it.

  This wasn’t good. No. This really sucked. My eyes were blackened, I could feel it. My shaking fingers reached up to my neck. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs wouldn’t fill, my throat constricted.

  My eyes widened as I stared at Kass, who was taking turns between staring at her sword and at me.

  “John. I’m sorry. This is my fault.” Kass stared at me.

  Whatever was left inside darkened. My mind was no longer my own. I did not need to breathe. I needed only one thing to survive: death.

  I wanted to lunge at her, grab her by the neck and tear her in two. I wanted to feed on her blood, bathe in it and let it rejuvenate me. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to do so much more to her than I ever knew.

  “I’m so sorry,” she stated, gripping her sword tighter.

  I was itching to get my hands on her, but she was the first to take a step. I snarled as she lifted her rose blade and shoved it into me. Into my chest. My heart.

  My feet stumbled back, my hands reaching up to the sword. It was too late. It was there, and it was deep. It would not come out, not by my hand. Pain shot through my entire body. This was hell. It
had to be. I was dying. I felt my body collapse to the stone driveway. My vision disappeared. I reached my hand out to her feet, but I didn’t make that far. I made it about six inches before I couldn’t move anything.

  One, last snarl escaped my mouth before my lids shut permanently.

  Chapter Thirty-Two – Gabriel

  I was about twenty foot away when I saw Kass shove her sword through John’s heart. I felt a burst of relief. I knew it was wrong to feel such relief, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care that John laid dead in our driveway – I only cared that Kass was safe.

  How did Osiris’s light go into John and not Kass? I wondered, but again, I didn’t truly care. My Kass was safe. That was the only thing I wanted.

  Running up, I could feel his pain. I could feel him changing into something terrible before Kass pushed her blade through him. I could feel it a mile away. I wasn’t sure how I felt it, though.

  If it had been Kass, and I came too late—I didn’t want to think of the possibility. If she didn’t listen to reason, I might actually have let her just kill me, because there was no way I could ever kill her, Demon or not.

  Kass stood staring at the lifeless body, mouth closed, looking like she wanted to scream, but nothing came out. She wasn’t crying, but her body was trembling as if she was.

  I ran up and embraced her, simultaneously spinning her so she was facing the opposite direction. Holding her close and peering above her head, I stared at his body, thinking, what the hell are we going to do about that?

  I summed the body up. He was definitely dead. He looked like stone. The black that had traveled along his body faded into something. Like a tattoo, marking his transition to Osiris. But he was dead, and that’s all that mattered.

  He was dead and Kass was safe and sound in my arms.

  Michael’s car pulled up. He was the first one out and started to say something, but I gently shook my head. Our Guardian glanced at the body, for the first time taking in the dead boy that lay on his driveway. We met eyes.

  What the hell were we going to do?

  Chapter Thirty-Three – Kass

  When I got in my bed that night, I never wanted to get out, ever.

  I killed John.

  Michael said he was sorry. Raphael said I did the right thing, the only thing I could have done and that I was, indeed, prepared for the worst. Gabriel had said nothing, only looked at me with those knowing eyes of his.

  I should have known. I should have known all along. My dreams, my visions. All of them had John. Why didn’t I realize that he wasn’t the evil one, and that evil was going to get him? What was wrong with me?

  I killed John.

  How was I going to be able to go on, living with this kind of regret? How the hell was I supposed to go to school tomorrow, like nothing happened tonight? Like I hadn’t killed my almost-boyfriend?

  How was anything ever going to return to normal?

  I cursed myself. I thought he was bad, that he had been working with the Hyena all along. But he wasn’t. He was just a normal boy. A normal boy that I killed. How could I even suspect him of something like that? Not all boys were evil Demons; Michael’s own words.

  I couldn’t believe how stupid I was.

  My ears heard the door slowly open. “Kass,” Gabriel’s voice was soft, softer than I’d ever heard it. He walked and sat on my bed.

  “What. Do. You. Want.” I hid my face under my pillow.

  “Are you okay?”

  I could feel his eyes staring down at me, studying my every move, even though I was hiding underneath a pillow. What did he expect me to say? ‘Oh, yeah. I just killed John, you know, the boy I really liked. I’m fine now.’ I didn’t think so.

  “Kass…” I felt him place his hand on my back.

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Gabriel, get the hell out!”

  “But—”

  “Now,” I snarled as violently as I could. I heard him walk, and then slam the door, leaving me alone, in the darkness of the night. Truthfully, being alone in a dark room at nighttime was the last thing I wanted right now.

  But you’d have to be in my head to know that.

  I felt like I wanted to cry, that I should cry, out of respect for John, for what I’d done and what I’d lost. There would be no more goofing off in physics with him. No more drives home in his comfy car. No more of John’s delicious scent. No more of his smile. No more John.

  John was gone. Forever.

  My whole body shook with a mixture of sadness and rage. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. My eyes were as dry as ever, like deep down I was expecting this to turn out as shitty as it did. This day was horrible.

  Suddenly a body crawled into bed next to me. I was too busy hating myself to move, too busy wallowing to push his strong arm away, too busy wishing I could cry to resist when he pulled me close to him.

  Why didn’t he leave, like I told him?

  “Kass,” Gabriel whispered into my ear, “I’ll never leave you.”

  And with that, I wanted to cry even more. Why? Because that didn’t change the fact that one of us was going to die first and leave the other. So, it could be true, only if I died and left him first. And who knew what was in our future? Certainly not me.

  “Gabriel,” I said once my emotions were somewhat under control. “Things aren’t going to be the same, are they?” I didn’t know why I asked. I already knew the answer.

  “Of course not.” I knew it. “I’ll make sure they’re better now, Kass. Things will get better, I promise.”

  “How do you know?” The question rang through my head, which was starting to hurt.

  He waited and stroked my hair before saying, “Trust me.”

  “But…”

  Gabriel covered my mouth, shushed me, and settled in the bed by pulling the covers over us. He wrapped his arm over me and held me all night, playing with my hair when I was awake because he knew it relaxed me and watching when I slept like my own guardian angel.

  And when I woke up the next morning, he was still there.

  I rolled out of bed and ignored the urge I had to crawl back in it and stay there forever. My feet sluggishly walked toward my closet. I bent down and picked up a big heap of clothes, figuring that there had to be something wearable in there. I made my way to the bathroom and closed the door with my foot.

  After dropping the pile of clothes on the floor, I knelt and rummaged through it. I found a t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

  Whatever. These’ll do.

  I put them on and brushed my teeth. I picked up my clothes and headed back to my room so I could drop them off. Everything seemed like a chore, even breathing. I had to remember to do it. I thought that Gabriel would still be sleeping, since he was awake watching me all night, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t there.

  Slowly but surely I made my way down the three flights of stairs and into the kitchen, where Michael and Gabriel were whispering. I knew what they were talking about.

  John’s body. About what they had done with John’s body.

  I tried to find something else to occupy my mind with, but it was hard, since I liked John and I was the one who killed him. Every time I closed my eyes I could see his pupils glaze over, I could see the life draining out of him, I could picture the way his body looked after it fell on the ground.

  The way he looked when the darkness, Osiris’s darkness, began to take over. I shivered at the tiniest thought of it. Since Osiris’s energy went into him, did that mean that John had been a virgin? Or did the ritual go utterly wrong because he wasn’t one? Guess I’d never know.

  God, my life sucked. My life sucked badly and it was never going to get any better, was it?

  Chapter Thirty-Four – Gabriel

  I felt Kass begin to stir next to me. I had held her all night. I had been there for her while she freaked out about John being dead and all that. It was wrong of me to be thankful that it had been John, but I couldn’t help feeling that way.

  Kass was my world. And if m
y world was taken away from me, what would be left of me besides an empty husk? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  I opened my eyes a little, watching her move, watching her bend down, watching her pick up some clothes. She was sad about killing John, that was obvious. I understood that.

  I knew she’d be different from now on. This would change her, and that made me conflicted, because all I wanted was the old Kass back.

  When she had left the room, I got up and walked down the stairs. Michael was already making himself some tea, settling in his chair, and reading the newspaper. His normal routine. What he did every morning. Like nothing had happened last night. Like Kass hadn’t killed John.

  “Michael,” I said, feeling abnormally strange. Maybe it was the circumstances we were in.

  “Gabriel. How did she sleep?” Michael set the paper down and folded his hands across it, waiting for me to answer.

  I slowly sat down next to him. His glasses glinted in the sunlight that was coming through the drawn curtains. “She barely got any sleep, Michael. How do you think she slept? Was that question really even necessary? She killed John. She’s probably not going to be getting any sleep for a while.”

  Michael spoke quietly, “I understand. But she will get better with time.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully. You and—” I glanced to the stairs, making sure Kass wasn’t coming down yet. “—Raphael took care of it?”

  “Yes.” Michael sipped his tea. “Since the Council would send an investigative team to look into the fact that a civilian was so close to on our Purifiers, we had to…” I heard footsteps, soft footsteps, but they were definitely there. “…do it on our own,” he finished, leaning in and closer to me.

  I nodded as Michael and I observed her glimpse toward us, grab a breakfast bar that would not hold her over till lunch, and head out to wait for the bus. Thirty minutes early.

  “I better go. See you later, Michael.” I stood and picked up my backpack. I walked out the door and ran up to Kass. She was silent. Too silent. And it worried me to see my Kass acting like this.