Silver Mortal (The Gracen Chronicles)

by Jenna Kay

  Somehow, just by looking into her eyes, I'm able to settle the obsessive beat of my heart and tame the hot madness in my blood. In that moment I realize that we're not the only ones in the room.

  “I'm okay, Mom,” I interject in a shaky breath, my eyes nervously scanning the room. “We have company.” And when I say company, I mean at least a hundred vamp demons infesting the club, their black hungry eyes set on us. There are no humans in the building—the demons must have anticipated a fight and kicked them out of there, which is for the best. Little did they know they'd made it easier for us. With no Untouched humans in the way we could demolish the whole building if we had to.

  Wind whips at our faces as a lone winged creature lowers himself to the ground in front of us. It's the demon from the office, the head honcho, and I'm caught off guard by what I'm seeing.

  A Fallen Angel...of course!

  I knew something had been a little off about him! That evil energy I'd felt in the office totally made sense now. Yes, demons have a vileness flowing off of them in potent waves, one that my kind can always detect. But what I'd felt in the office, and at this very second, could only be described as foreign to my Silver Eagle senses. This certain feeling is indescribably sinister, and just plain wrong. I've never seen a Fallen Angel, but I've heard many stories about them. They're powerful, deceptive, and can completely drain a Silver Mortal of their powers during battle. Taking a look at Mom I watch as all the color drains from her face, which sets my nerves on fire. Mother is always the strong one, but the feeling of fear rolling off of her body causes me to think she's not as strong as I thought.

  Oh, that's another power we Silver Mortals possess—we can feel a persons emotions, read them like an open book. We're like emotion detectors, and right now my mom is scared.

  Getting in between me and the Fallen Angel, Mom says, “Zavebe...I never thought I'd see you again, especially after I sent you back to the pit.”

  “Zavebe?” I take a step to stand next to mom, glaring at her. “Mom, you never told me about a freaking Fallen Angel named Zavebe!”

  “And how funny it is,” she continues, ignoring my remark, “that you turn back up with your little legion of misfits just as soon as my daughter shows up on radar.”

  Zavebe lets out an obnoxious laugh, the vicious gleam in his black eyes growing. “That's the best time, isn't it? To pounce on the freshest of meat? And besides, she's still young, easy to influence. She has the freewill to choose what she wants to be.”

  “Okay, look, I'm right here, so don't talk like I'm not,” I tell them with anger and confusion skidding across my brain. Glowering at the Fallen Angel I say, “And anyway, Mr. Zavebe, I'm not a puppet for someone to control. No one influences me, not you, not my mother, nobody.”

  The room fills with demonic laughter, all the vamps thinking what I'd just said was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

  His black eyes zone in on me and he smiles, and that's when I notice his teeth. They're black, sharp, and pointy...all three rows of them. He was now in his true form. Black feathery wings protrude from his back, fanning the air around him. His hands are huge with thick, five-inch black claws, which he closes and opens at his waist. He rips off his pin-striped jacket, throwing it to the ground. Insanely huge muscles can be seen tightening and rippling under his white t-shirt, every vein popping out over his skin. His muscles are so large he looks as if he's about to pop. This is my first Fallen Angel meeting, and I would be lying if I said that I'm not scared and about to pee myself. I mean, this Zavebe creep is way up high on my crap-o-meter of most freakiest beings I've seen in my sixteen years.

  “Oh Ellen,” Zavebe says, his eyes still raking over me, “your daughter is very exciting! She'd make a fine trophy to take back home with me. Maybe even get some points from my lord...that is, if her fa—”

  I interrupt his rant by raising my sword and pointing it at his chest. “I'm not going anywhere with you, you piece of—”

  “Gracen, don't,” Mom strictly orders, her hand guiding my sword downward. “You're not ready for this.”

  I'm unable to hide my disappointment, openly gawking at her. I stay speechless, but can't believe what she's saying. All the hard work I've been doing, yet she doesn't think I'm ready? It's not right, not right at all.

  “Besides,” she continues in a voice just above a whisper, “I've taken care of it.” Her silver eyes gaze intently at me and that's when I know—something's about to happen.

  That's when it did.

  A loud boom sounds on the far end of the room, catching the demons and the fallen angel by surprise. A boarded up window had exploded, sending pieces of plywood through the air, some stabbing into the unsuspecting demons. A figure dressed all in black from head to toe emerges from the window, throwing little grenades into the crowd. I also see he's carrying some sort of flares.

  “Y'all ready for a real party?!” a man's voice sounds, and I immediately know who it is. Before I can say anything mom pulls me into the hallway behind the curtain, pushing me into the closest room.

  “Mom, it's Jude—”

  “I know, honey,” she cuts in, pushing me to the ground. “That's why we have to take cover.”

  I'm about to ask a butt load of questions when a huge blast, louder than the first, shakes the entire building. I crouch down, hands covering my head. I think Mom does the same. Screams of pain and torment rage in the air, the sounds so strident I'm afraid my eardrums will explode. Pieces of ceiling, sheet rock, and brick fall to the ground, landing all around mom and me. I now know what Mom meant by “I've taken care of it”. She'd called Jude, he'd brought his homemade weapons of demon destruction along, and slaughtered all the otherworldly dirt bags, sending them on a one-way trip to Hell. Thank God for Jude's brain and demon-killing skills!

  Chills overtake my body as one voice sweeps over the rest of the anguished wails, the verbal message sent in my direction. The message freezes my body all the way through to my bones.

  “I'LL BE BACK!” Zavebe shouts angrily, his tone laced with vengeance. “YOU WILL BE MINE, GRACEN! YOU WILL BE MINE!”

  A sound like a tornado mixed with a hurricane roars loudly, followed by an eerie silence. I stand up on wobbly, unstable legs, and find that my mother has already left the room. Walking into the hallway I begin to cough, the air thick with dust and asbestos. I enter the main room that just minutes earlier had been filled with a hundred vamp demons and one terrifying Fallen Angel. Now the room is nothing more than a trash can full of blown up rubble. I'm amazed at the amount of destruction Jude has constructed. Chandeliers and strobe lights dangle freely from the high ceiling, the bulbs all busted. The ground is littered with broken glass, pieces of furniture, and miscellaneous stuff I can't identify.

  I make my way over to Mom and Jude, stepping over huge pieces of debris. With the exception of looking like an eighteen wheeler had pummeled over him, he seems to be fine. They see me and Jude waves, a painful expression covering his face.

  “Hey, Silva Sista!” he calls, then lets out a moan and grabs his right shoulder. “Ooh, that's really gonna hurt later.”

  “What in the world did you use, Jude?” I question.

  He grins through the pain. “Oh, just some homemade bombs, magnesium flares...you know, the usual.” I'm not impressed.

  “You could have killed yourself, Jude!” I turn and glare at Mom. “And why did you call him into this? We could have handled it.”

  She shakes her head and sighs. “Gracen, we were outnumbered. We needed his help...”

  “And that's my job,” Jude adds strongly, his voice quivering as if wounded by my words. “Oh, and by the way—your welcome.”

  I become contrite, stating, “Jude, I was just trying to say that—”

  “We've got to get going, the police are on their way,” Mom interjects hurriedly, taking Jude's arm and helping him over the carnage. On cue sirens begin to sound in the distance. If we didn't leave now we'd run the risk of being seen and questioned.<
br />
  Jude suddenly goes limp and mom picks him up. We start to run, our super speed getting us to the Mustang, and we're on the road in no time. Jude is out cold in the backseat, and I'm kind of happy he is. If he knew that my mother had just ran with him in her arms it would make him feel weak, and the fact that he'd just sent over one hundred demons back to Hell would not make a difference.

  “Do you think Jude's shoulder is broken?” I ask Mom.

  “Not sure,” she replies, her eyes staying on the road. I watch her for a few moments and notice how deep in thought she is.

  After a brief moment of awkward silence I work up the nerve to ask, “What's the story with Zavebe?” That breaks through her thoughts immediately, and a rush of feelings flow off of her.

  Nervous. Anxious. Grief.

  “What do you mean, hon?”

  I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean. I also know you're nervous about something, so you might as well fess up.”

  She stays silent with her emotions, so I continue on.

  “You said something about him being there because your daughter showed up on radar, and he knew my name. Like he already knew of my existence. And you talked to him like you had some history, and for some reason he's clearly adamant about me joining the demon side.”

  She sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly, an uneasy feeling skittering off of her. “Zavebe is a Fallen Angel, part of the rebel angels that fell from Heaven. He's a liar, a deceiver, and brings devastation and turmoil into the lives of both Touched and Untouched humans. They'll say anything to sway your thinking.”

  I groan in frustration. “Mom, you're just spouted out textbook mumbo-jumbo! I already know that story! What I want to know is how this Zavebe knows me and why he wants me so much?”

  “Can it wait until later?” she quickly says, her eyes strictly on the road, and I know right then and there that I'm not going to get any answers.

  “Fine,” I huff, crossing my arms. The rest of the ride is a silent one.

  I know she's keeping things from me, thinking that I'm too young to understand what's happening in the world of darkness. But tonight is different. Meeting Zavebe has opened up a whole new world in my supernatural eyes, and the conversation the two of them had shared left me with unanswered questions.

  Why didn't Mom just answer my straight forward questions? What kind of history did the two of them have? And why is he so interested in me? I've been living this life for three years, almost four, and still have more questions than answers.

  Life has a way of taking you down paths that you never see coming, and meeting people you never thought existed. Sometimes you do things out of love, sometimes you do things out of hate, and both can leave you feeling misguided.

  My life was about to take a strange turn down a wayward path, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

  31

  Silver Mortal

  CHAPTER 4

  I wake up screaming, my heart pounding furiously and throbbing in my throat. My body is bathed in sweat, the wetness seeping through my shorts and shirt. Fear, confusion, and pain has my bones in a firm grip. All the images come flooding back, and now I understand why I'm soaked in sweat and out of breath. My body shudders and suddenly I'm freezing. I pull the blanket all the way up to my chin and close my eyes, willing the images to disappear, only they become more vivid behind my closed lids.

  A knock sounds on my door. The door opens and in walks my mom.

  “Gracen, what's wrong?” she inquires, sitting next to me on the bed. Pushing strands of wet hair off my face and behind my ear she adds, “Your scream shook the whole building.” I open my eyes and look at her.

  “Sorry about that—had a bad dream,” I answer her, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “I'm fine now. You can go back to sleep.”

  “Now you know I can't do that, hon. So go ahead and tell me what has you screaming yourself awake.” She leans back on the pillow beside me. The dark bags under her eyes tell me that she's in need of a good sleep, and her normally spiky hair is flattened on one side of her head.

  I blow out a sigh and give in, knowing she won't leave until she hears my dream. That's another awesome gift from the Silver Eagle (awesome really meaning awful). We can sense when someone is hurting or distressed. Also our dreams can help us in the future. Sometimes we dream about things to come, whether it's a happy dream or disturbing dream, though my dreams usually stay more on the line of heavily demented.

  “Okay, well,” I begin, gathering my thoughts, “it's basically the same dream I always have. There's that white-haired man who's ordering beings around, both demons and humans. I think he's a Night Viper...wait, I know he's a Night Viper, and some of the humans are as well, but many are Untouched humans.

  “I'm in some kind of dungeon or underground cave, the walls are covered with rocks and lit up with torches and huge fireplaces—at least I think they're fireplaces. Rodents and all sorts of bugs are everywhere, and snakes slithered around my feet.

  “Usually when I have this dream I'm the spectator, like I'm sitting back and watching a movie on the big screen, though I've never seen a movie this horrific. The demons are maiming and doing disgusting things to some of the humans, like dismemberment, sexual acts, sacrificial ceremonies...” I shudder again, the sick images so vivid in my mind it causes my stomach to curl into a nauseated twist.

  Ever since moving to New York I'd been having the same dream of this white-headed Night Viper, feared by both demons and humans. There's something about him that screams he's extremely threatening. Yes, demons and Night Vipers are dangerous, but there's something even more sinister about this guy, something that I cannot grasp while I'm in sleep mode. He seems even darker and foreboding than Zavebe.

  Mom senses my discomfort and wraps me in a hug. I lay my head against her chest. She smells of spice and sweet perfume.

  “You'll feel better if you get it out, honey,” she whispers into my hair.

  After swallowing the rock hard lump jammed in my throat I start up again. “Anyway, like I said before, I'm always the spectator, the fly on the wall, but tonight I was actually part of the nightmare.”

  Mom's body tenses under me and she inquires, “What are you saying?”

  “The white-haired Viper is talking to me, ordering me around, yelling profanities at me, smacking me around...hurting me.” I lean up to gaze into mom's face, knowing my expression is pitiful. “It felt so real, mom. Like it wasn't a dream, but actually happening to me. It was horrible, disgusting, and...” I trail off, biting back a sob itching to spring forth.

  She pats my head sympathetically. “It was only a dream, Gracen.” I shake my head. “No, I think it means something more,” I argue, afraid to tell her the last part of the equation.

  Her forehead creases with worry. “What are you not telling me?”

  “In the dream I'm not myself.” I pause, feeling uncertain.

  “Keep going,” she urges strongly.

  “He called me Ashley,” I inform her in a rush of words. “And I think this Ashley is in deep trouble.”

  “Hmm,” she ponders. “Is Ashley an Untouched human, or a Touched human?”

  A Touched human—a much nicer way to say screwed-up mortal.

  I shake my head sadly and whisper, “I have no idea.”

  Mom gives me one last squeeze and stands up. I can tell that something is weighing heavy on her mind, and I also know she will not tell me what it is—at least, not yet, anyway. She paces the room a few times, her yellow robe swishing back and forth around her ankles. Suddenly she stops pacing and turns to me, offering me a forced, weak smile.

  “I'm going to rest a little,” she tells me, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. “Once Jude wakes up I'll get him to check out remote locations that best fits your descriptions. We'll also see if there's any missing Ashley's around the area. I know it will take a lot of searching, since we have no last name or description of the girl, but we've got to start trying.”
r />   “Um...Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if Jude's not up to working?” I question her, adding, “You know, since he was beaten to a pulp just a few hours ago.”

  OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but Jude's little venture had left him pretty bruised. Thankfully no broken bones like we'd expected, which was such a blessing since he didn't heal as fast as we do. With the blood of the Silver Eagle running through our veins my mother and I are able to heal faster than the average human. Yes, Jude is an Informant, but his physical human body is very much average.

  Though Jude may feel like roadkill later today I highly doubted that he would turn down mom's request. He'd push through the pain like always. After all, he's very dedicated to his job, which is lucky for my mother since she doesn't have a sensitive bone in her body when it comes to someone else in pain.

  And just as I suspected, she blows off what I said about Jude being beaten to a pulp. “He'll be fine. After a good days rest he'll feel good as new.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever you say, mom.”

  Mom walks to the door then stops, leaning an elbow on the doorjamb. “Gracen?”

  “Yeah?” I answer, plopping back down against my pillows.

  “I'm not going to let anything happen to you—I promise.” And with that odd little tidbit said she closes the door.

  I stare at the closed door a long while, thinking about my insane, Touched life. Really, I've got to be the most screwed up sixteen year old girl on the face of the planet. At thirteen I see a werewolf, find out I'm not completely normal and move up to New York City to live with my neurotic mother. I have dreams about a psycho Night Viper, get superhuman powers after midnight, and kill demons with my pure silver Katana—which I can use skillfully.

  Messed-up with a capitol Screwed.

  In hopes of getting a few hours sleep, I flip over to my side and sink into my fluffy pillow. My mind starts to rest and I feel sleep getting close...that is until my cell phone begins to vibrate. Letting out a groan, I grab it from my nightstand and see that it's Bets. Reluctantly I answer, knowing Bets has my whole Saturday planned out like she always does.