I laid a hand on her arm. She flinched.
I pulled my hand back. “Who would I have sent? I have no friends outside of this place. Haven’t been in Portland long enough.”
“Red’s your friend.”
“Red’s my boss. Makes it less likely that he’d go checking up on you as a favor to me,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t get why you’re mad. I’m the one who should be mad, seeing as you sneaked out in the middle of the night. Not even a note. If you’re gonna break the rules, Faith, at least try not to get caught.”
Her mouth fell open. “You checked on me in the middle of the night.”
“Every night.”
“Sorry,” she said, in a tone that suggested she actually meant it. “I didn’t know you still did that. I don’t have the nightmares anymore—not for years. You don’t need to check.”
“It’s habit,” I said. “And clearly I do.”
She thinned her lips. “I’m confused. If you didn’t send him, then—”
I interrupted. “Who came to see you at Ben’s?”
“How did you know where I was?”
“Please,” I said.
She had the grace to look a little sheepish. “This guy, he knocked on Ben’s door at quarter to six, Night. White hair, pale eyes, a couple of years older than me. He said he knew you from back when, and he kept looking at me like he’d seen a ghost. Every time he opened his mouth, the wind kicked up—like, in a horror movie? He creeped the hell out of me.”
She hugged herself and began to pace in three-step increments.
Someone who’d known me back when could only mean a member of the Order. But I knew every single one of them, at least up until the moment I’d made my break. I’d never met anyone matching the description Faith had given. If he was new, and he knew who Faith was, why hadn’t he just killed her then and there?
“Night, he had this vibe about him. It felt like—like the night you found me.”
Hiding under the bed, trembling with terror. Not knowing whether she’d be next.
She’d had terrifying dreams about that time every night for the first year she’d lived with me. She woke up screaming at 3:30 a.m. on the mark—the same time as her near-death experience—sweat-soaked and hyperventilating. Nothing soothed her except my arms around her. And time. A lot of time.
The nightmares faded, though for a while, she still came awake at the same time each night. Eventually, even that ended. I still stirred, though. I got out of bed, padding through the house on bare feet, my skin embracing summer sweat or winter chill as I checked every door and window, each corner shadow, coming to pause in the open doorway to her bedroom. I watched her sleep for five, ten minutes, grateful for the peace that showed on her face most of the time.
I wished for peace in my own heart. It never came—nor, if I were honest with myself, should it. I hadn’t felt a single lick of remorse all the years that I’d killed. But since then, regret had taken up residence inside my heart and showed no signs of leaving. I wished for a way to make things right. I wished for some way to ensure that all those deaths at my hands—that those people had not died in vain.
I had my own bad dreams. In them, I saw the faces of every single person I’d killed. I felt them die, and I felt pieces of them—their loves, their memories—fall into me. They shouted their pain and their anguish, their joy and their love. The sound became a cacophony inside my head. At the end, always, they screamed at me to remember the one thing I could not. That one elusive memory. The one thing that could heal—or destroy—me.
Maybe I deserved to be destroyed. But this wasn’t about what I deserved. It was about Faith. She should never have to relive the night her parents died.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “That guy said he knew me.”
Faith stopped pacing and nodded.
“I don’t know him.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Are you sure he wasn’t there that night?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “
“Then who was he?”
“I’m gonna find out.”
“With what? Your private-eye superpowers? You’re a gym coach. With exceptional intuition.”
“Please,” I said.
I was more than that, and she knew it. She knew all about my magic. She just didn’t know how I’d honed it, how I’d used it before I found her.
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime, Night?”
“You can’t go to school,” I said.
Her shoulders sank halfway to their usual place. “If he knew where to find me this morning, he’d know to find me there. Or here, for that matter.”
“Yes, but here you’ve got people.”
“Red, again.”
I nodded. Red had magic. He didn’t think anyone knew that. He tried to hide it, and mostly, he did. But no one could hide the flavor of their magic from me, not when I could see it plain and clear in their halos.
Red’s halo never varied: grass green and earth brown. Comforting. Protective. And that was what and who he was. He saw the good in people where others would see only trouble.
“Red’s office,” I said.
Faith met my gaze. “You sure he won’t mind? Like you said, he’s your boss.”
“He likes you,” I said.
“You mean he likes you.” She waggled a brow, changing the tone of the conversation on a dime.
“He’s good to work for,” I said.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Didn’t I? I didn’t want to go a round or ten about Red and how we danced around each other, especially not with my girl. If it were up to her, she’d pair me off with the first decent man or woman, and we’d be a happily-ever-after family. Her hope sprang eternal.
“I’ll call the school and tell them you’re sick. You can pick up your homework later from the electronic drop box,” I said.
“That’s called changing the subject, Night.”
“Pot calling the kettle. He flirts,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”
“You flirt back,” she said. “So it kind of is.”
I pointed at the office. “Go.”
She marched off, turning her head toward Ben and Jess as she did. I couldn’t see Faith’s face, but I could see Jess’s, and the concern in Jess’s eyes.
Jess mouthed something at Faith that looked like Him?
Faith shrugged.
Watching all of that, piecing it together with Ben’s weird comments about Faith not having been sleeping with him, that she’d been over studying but managed to paint her fingernails with something only Corey would wear—it added up to a teenage conspiracy.
It might have something to do with the other thing that bothered me. Something Faith had not said before she’d walked away.
In the past, any potential threat had been grounds to pack up and move right then and there, no questions asked. Early in our time together, she’d done what I’d asked in that department without hesitation. After a couple of years, as her night terrors subsided, she put up more of a fight, though she’d still gone along. It was so hard to be the new kid all the time, to try to make friends, only to find that as soon as you’d made a place for yourself, you had to let it go. It was hard to lose like that.
I hated that it had to be done, but I made it happen anyway. Better to be heartsore and alive than to stay in one place too long and end up six feet under.
All of that was why I hadn’t wanted to have to tell her we had to run again. But given what happened this morning at Ben’s house, she should’ve at least asked what I thought.
She knew I had to be thinking about it. A mysterious white-haired guy who claimed to know me from before, and who’d shown up on her friend’s doorstep at the crack of dawn? That was textbook for time to run again.
Add to that everything that had already happened this morning and what in God’s name was going on?
Ben’s deep voice busted up my thoughts. “Hey, Night? My turn, yeah?”
&nb
sp; I sent him an automatic grin that, judging by the frown he answered with, did not resemble an actual smile. I shook it off and made my way back to the ropes.
“Get it,” I said.
He handed Jess his mug and started up the rope.
She took a sip and grimaced. “He likes coffee with his sugar.”
“I commiserate,” I said.
She studied my face. Whatever she saw there, she couldn’t keep it out of her expression. Mouth turned down. Eyes narrowed. Finally, she looked everywhere but at me.
Once Ben came down from the rope, he spent the remainder of the session studying his mug or his shoes, unwilling to say anything else embarrassing—or anything at all. I clapped him between the shoulder blades as we said good-bye and he strolled out the door into the rain.
Jess slung her backpack over her shoulder, holding the door open for Corey, now spiffy in her short, dark blue, pleated plaid dress and matching plaid tights. The dark still held sway outside, but the light had changed, the glow of the streetlights not quite so bright now that the rising sun filtered slowly through clouds.
Jess let the other girl slip out, waving after her. “I’ll catch up,” she said.
“Don’t be late!” Corey called back. Her footfalls on the wet pavement faded as she walked away.
Jess let go of the door and turned to face me as it closed. “You’re not what I was told you were.”
Her words took me by surprise. “What’s that, Jess?”
“A stone cold killer.”
Just like that. Matter-of-fact, like her best friend, Ben. “Who told you that?”
“My aunt,” she said.
Her aunt. I’d never met the woman. If she’d told Jess I was a killer, then the aunt knew more about me than I did about her. “Outside.”
Jess stepped out as I asked. I followed her and waited the few seconds for the door shut behind us. Faith was still in Red’s office. Let her stay there until I knew more about what we were up against in Jess’s aunt.
The mist had morphed into soft rain. Across the street at the coffee shop, someone laughed in short bursts that reminded me of a barking seal.
“Why would you say that to me?” I asked. “Why would your aunt say it about me?”
“We know about your magic.” Jess hitched her backpack higher on her shoulder. “You’re the dark side, Night. The flavor of your magic, everything about you. We knew when you came to town. We felt you arrive. You’re unmistakable.”
“Not to most people.” Most of the people I’d killed had never seen or heard me coming. The Order hadn’t caught up with me yet as far as I could tell—though Sunday had. And Sunday was a special case.
Jess shook her head. “We’re not most people.”
Had Jess and her people—she’d said we—felt Sunday arrive in town as well? If there was the slightest chance, I’d need to get word to Sunday. Otherwise, she’d have a target on her back and not know it until too late. Even if she was still a killer. Even if she was crazy. Sunday had been a light for me in the darkness. That mattered more.
“Enlighten me,” I said. “Who are you?”
“We’re the magical law in this town.”
I’d come across several types of magical law enforcement in my life. The world was full of them because magical beings, human and not remotely human, walked the Earth all the time. Most people didn’t notice. They went about their lives blissfully unaware that the shade of a dead person followed them, or that the hot girl dancing in the club who made them want to fuck was a faery or a demon, or that the girl who rang up their groceries when they had too many to use the self-service checkout station dabbled in the kind of magic that would curl their hair.
Most people didn’t know the Order existed. Or that the assassins in its employ had been born with magical abilities and brought into service as children because their parents couldn’t deal with objects flying around the house every time their child threw a tantrum or the idea that their child spoke to spirits—especially if something seemed to answer.
From personal experience, I understood that most parents couldn’t handle being made to see and hear things, or understanding that their child had caused them to do so, or believing a demon had possessed their child and that no amount of torturous exorcism could excise it.
But there were people who did see and hear and know. And those people had gradually evolved to act as a counterweight to perceived—and sometimes, actual—threat. Faery seers policed the fae beings who entered the human world. They also took on demons and angels, both the humanized half-breeds and the full-blooded, full-powered deep dwellers of hells and heavens. Some witches and other human magical practitioners set themselves up as guardians of cities or wild lands. They tracked magical creatures who entered their territory and meted out justice or retribution to those who committed magical crimes. They made a habit of running undesirables out of town.
On occasion, the Order had functioned as a kind of policing body when beings that were too powerful to walk the human world entered it and refused to leave. Of course, the Order did that by taking jobs to assassinate those beings. It was rare, but it happened.
Jess claimed to be in service of the law. She’d accused me of murder.
“Which kind of law?” I asked. “What authority are you claiming?”
“Watchers,” she said. “We’re Watchers.”
I’d heard of them in my training with the Order, but I’d never seen one in real life. My mentor in the Order told me that if they’d ever existed at all, they’d gone extinct. I could see now that he’d lied.
The original Watchers had been descendants of the Nephilim, or fallen angels. The angels mated with humans and the offspring became known as Watchers because they could see magic that humans could not and they could perform certain types of magic as well. As far as other humans were concerned, the Watchers were gods. That didn’t sit well with human priests, who claimed it didn’t sit well with their capital-G God. Supposedly, that had been the impetus for unleashing the Biblical flood upon the world as a punishment. Supposedly, it redeemed the transgression of those humans who mated with the angels, and cleansed the world of those Watcher offspring.
Clearly also a lie, because the girl standing in front of me claimed to be one.
“If you believe I’m a threat,” I said, “I should be treated as one.”
“That’s what my aunt said. But I don’t buy it. And no, I wasn’t supposed to say any of this to you at all, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch it go down.”
“What’s that?” I folded my arms across my chest.
“My aunt wants you dead. She thinks you’re bringing the big one down on us. We can’t have him here. He’ll destroy us. He’ll destroy this town, and he won’t stop there.”
Her aunt wanted me dead. I’d never met the woman. As far as I knew, I’d never done a damned thing to her or to her kin. This was about what she thought I might do. “You’re gonna have to be more specific about who you mean,” I said, although I had a hunch, given what Jess and her people were descended from.
“The Horseman of Death. The Angel of Death.”
Two different beings? No, the same one. The Horsemen were angels in service of God in bringing on the apocalypse and seeing it through. Second time I’d heard the Angel of Death’s name in as many hours. “The big one?”
Jess shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “He’s the most powerful angel in our lore, and he’s invisible to us. We can see everything else magical, but he could sneak up on us and we wouldn’t even know it.”
“I’ll bet that’s terrifying,” I said.
“You have no idea.”
Everyone was different. I couldn’t walk in Jess’s shoes, but I understood some things about bone-deep fear. “Your aunt on her way here to take me out?” I asked.
“Not yet. There’s something she has to take care of first.”
“Calling in reinforcements? I’m not easy to get rid of. Do yourself a favor and
don’t try.”
Jess curled her hands into fists. “Stop it. Stop acting like I’m, like I’m….”
I finished her sentence for her. “The enemy?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m trying to warn you, Night. I like you. I don’t think you’re as bad as my aunt says. And I don’t think you’re the reason the Angel of Death is heading our way.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Why not?”
“Because if you wanted to hurt any one of us by now, you’d have done it. And because of Faith,” Jess said. “If you were a killer, Faith wouldn’t love you so much.”
If Jess only knew the whole story, she might change her mind. “How many Watchers are coming for me?”
“Just my aunt. She’s all that’s left here in the city, at least until I grow into my magic all the way.”
Which meant there were others around the world who could be called if needed. “What’s the one thing she has to do first before she comes after me?”
As soon as I asked the question, the answer popped into my mind.
Jess’s words echoed my thoughts. “She’s got to get Faith to a safe place.”
“Your aunt lays a finger on my kid—”
“Please don’t hurt her, Night.”
I studied Jess’s face. I saw no secrets there. She’d shared everything she’d been told, which made it likely she hadn’t been told everything.
“You know, you’re lucky,” I said. “You were raised in a magical family, one that understands your gifts and appreciates them. A lot of us don’t have that. Instead, we get superstitious priests called on us, beaten, locked away, thrown out. Our parents don’t know what’s the matter with us. They only know that we’re wrong. That we’re evil. That’s what they think. And there’s no reporting what’s done to us to Child Services or the cops. The magic we carry keeps that from happening. We’re rendered invisible. Helpless.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be sorry—wake up. Faith is with me because I took her out of a home where all of that was happening to her.”
“Thank you for taking her,” Jess said. “I think my aunt knows that, but it doesn’t change what she thinks.”
Night Awakens: The Awakened Magic Saga (Soul Forge Book 1) Page 3
