My stamina improved significantly. I was able to work longer hours, though longer hours meant I was more tired when I hit the homework. My legs hurt from having to stand straight while suspended in the air. My fingers actually had little black circles around the tips as a result of me scorching my own skin. Working this hard made me forget temporarily about the two important individuals who had been taken from me. I had to remind myself that I was doing all this for them. If there had never been a Wesley or an Aaron, or even an Adam, I wouldn’t have cared less if the planet had turned in on itself and imploded.
My friends were the ones who balanced me. They were what made me wake up every morning and work so hard before I went to sleep every night. They were the reason that I persevered at learning how to control a flame. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to keep going. And I wouldn’t have mastered my role in the resurrection of a girl who had been dead for eighteen years.
Mom had said that when I was born I was the last of my kind. The rules forbade love, lust and marriage between Heaven and the Underworld. There had been no further unions between the two sides, which meant there were no other children like me. This also meant that Krista had been condemned to Purgatory because there was no one her power could be passed to. It was heartbreaking, really. Without good, there was no evil and without evil there was no good. The world was like my bloodlines. As long as I kept them balanced I was good, but the moment it tipped one way of the other all Hell broke loose.
I realized how hard it must be to be in limbo, knowing that the only way you could truly pass on was for something remarkable to happen. It must be lonely for Krista. No wonder she gripped onto me when I traveled her timeline. I was the first being that had taken the time to care. I felt the tears rolling down my cheek whenever I thought about it.
I was thinking about Krista one evening when my phone began to ring, causing me to jump. I grabbed it and noted the absence of any numbers on the screen. It was a private call, one that I would not be able to trace. I clicked the talk button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Dawn, this is Edmund. I have someone here who wants to speak with you.”
I heard a rustle of movement.
“Dawn?” The voice was hoarse and groggy. As if the speaker had just woken up.
“Yes.” My heart leapt in my chest. My mother was right. Dear Edmund had found Aaron.
“Oh, thank God you’re okay,” Aaron said, his voice cracking. “They won’t let me tell you where I am. They’ve sworn Edmund to secrecy as well.”
I heard a grumble in the background. Who could persuade an ancient vampire to make a pact not to tell where someone of importance was located?
“Can you at least tell me who you’re with?” I asked him. My heart had been pounding nonstop since I heard his voice.
“Not really. I can tell you that I am safe; so are my parents. In fact, my parents kind of like it here, it seems.”
“What does that mean?” I asked him.
“It means… we’re staying.” His voice faltered for a second.
“Staying?”
“Dawn, you know I love you. You know that every breath I take is for you,” he said, a little too hastily perhaps.
“Yes.”
I had become numb to him saying it to me, even after I had confessed that in my own small way I did love him, just not to the same extent that he loved me.
“But I don’t know when I’m going to see you again,” he said. I could hear pain in his voice.
“What?” I felt like my insides were going to fall out.
“Things are changing. I don’t want to hurt you.”
My head was swimming. “Aaron, are you breaking up with me?” I asked slowly.
You would have thought I would be happy if he was. I would have thought I would be happy if he was. However, in reality it sucked.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed.
“What do you mean by things are changing?” I demanded.
“That I can’t tell you. They just are.” He sounded like his heart was breaking. “Just remember that I do love you, and that I will always love you. I just think that our souls need to part for a while. I need to get my head around the things that are happening here.”
“I don’t understand, Aaron!” I was feeling sick.
“I will still call you, and you can email me… you just can’t know where I am right now.”
I heard the phone rustle again and Edmund came back on.
“Dawn, are you alright?” he asked.
“Of course. I was just dumped over the phone,” I said, trying to keep the tears at bay.
“They’re making him,” he said. “He doesn’t want to do this. His parents just feel it best if he does.”
“How is he?” I asked, about to give up on my eyes, which were going to shed tears one way or another.
“He’s good. He’s pretty much healed in fact.” He stopped talking.
“What did they do to him?” I demanded, anger surging through me.
“Dawn, he’s changing. He tells you he loves you now, but in two weeks he won’t even know how he felt about you. If the two of you came face to face you might feel something, but he will feel nothing more than a familiarity.” Edmund sighed. “Listen. I will be heading back to you at the first sign of night. You and I can stay up and discuss what’s going on. I can tell you some things, but I can’t tell you everything. I am sworn to keep the secret of their location. That is, until a time at which they feel they can make it known. Just know that it is a nice place. They are well taken care of.”
“Edmund?” I choked on my words. “What about the claim I have on Aaron’s soul?”
“It will sever within the next few weeks,” he said. “Now I have to go in order to get things set for the journey home. He will email you until the day comes when he realizes he has no emotional connection with you anymore.”
“Okay. I understand. See you when you get here,” I said and hung up the phone.
Just seconds ago I had been thinking how Aaron balanced me out. Now he was gone, just like Wesley. One thing was for certain, I was not going to be making any more claims after this one was broken.
***
“You want to talk about it?” my father asked, knocking on the door before coming into my room.
“Not sure what there is to talk about,” I said slowly, wiping the tears from my cheeks.
“I’m not going to say I warned you,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to me.
“Good, because right now I don’t need a good I-told-you-so,” I said quietly.
“I’m truly sorry this has happened. When you first started to see him I thought it was going to end tragically for him.” He pulled me close to him, pressing my head against his chest.
“I think it did end pretty catastrophically for him,” I said.
“But not in the way that I thought it would. I thought that you were going to rip his heart out and eat it for dinner because you were so angry about Wesley.” He was petting my hair now and rocking me slowly.
“Why can’t he tell me where he is?” I asked. I had to admit what he was doing was rather comforting.
“Because he doesn’t know,” my father said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“How can he not know?”
“Because they haven’t told him,” he answered with a laugh. “If he is where I think he is you wouldn’t want to be there, anyway,” he said slowly. “I’ve been there once. Nice place, beautiful views over the ocean, but the people...” He shivered. “Well, they’re aren’t people at all.”
“What are they, then? Dad, those things that attacked Aaron and his family… are they what’s causing this change?” I wondered out loud.
He sighed. “They are the reason for the change, yes.”
“This is a physical change, isn’t it? Not like a change in the time, or the weather. When he said thin
gs were changing he meant that he is changing,” I murmured.
“I think you’re starting to understand.” He kept rocking me back and forth.
“What is he becoming?”
“It depends what was in that house. There was a plethora of different species, different bloodlines… I’m not sure who was what. The bloodstain images I got were inconclusive. We couldn’t find anything that pinpointed who carried out the attack. It was motivated by malice, though. They wanted revenge for their brother being burnt to ashes, and then the felling of the two purebloods. It’s almost like a group of scientists has been experimenting to see what they could get by mixing different genetic pools. I just don’t know. Your mother asked me to let it go for a bit and focus on getting your third friend above ground. We will resume searching for answers as soon as the allies start to show.” He took a breath and kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Dawn,” he said into my hair.
“I love you too, Dad,” I answered, squeezing him tightly. “How long till the contract is broken?”
“You have a few days left, maybe two weeks. It just depends on how quickly the change happens.”
I curled up closer against my father and closed my eyes.
“Dad?” I asked.
“What sweetie?”
“How do you know so much about these things?”
“When you live as long as I have you meet a lot of different people. I just know it’s going to be ok in the end.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Training
I kept the story of my being dumped from Adam. I wasn’t sure if he would rejoice that things had ended between Aaron and me or if he would feel some pity. And it was something I didn’t want to face myself. I was sure, however, that my father had told my mother about it.
The one good thing that came out of the break-up was the fact that I could now focus on my fire training. I mastered the protection flame in an afternoon. That meant we were finally good for the raising of Krista. I was ready to provide my part of the equation. Minerva and Shawn both agreed that it was time Helen and I worked on the act together, trying to find out what exactly we needed to do.
All we had to go on was a dream that Helen had had before she made her way to Midvale to find me. In that, I cast the fire of protection to keep the evil spirits out while Helen parted the earth and brought forth the casket. I broke open the top and then we recited some ridiculous chant that my mother had told us about. All of this was supposed to put Krista back on solid ground. It did make me think that God had a sense of humor after all. He had already told her that she was going to get a second chance. Perhaps he was somewhere up there finding this all hilarious. Watching me spend days falling on my ass as I trained would be enough to get anyone laughing.
My thoughts kept going back to Aaron. I acknowledged that at the start he was meant to be nothing more than a filler. I was supposed to use him up and let him go, not actually start giving a damn about him and worrying when he wasn’t near. I wasn’t supposed to get attached to him. But I did. I had longed for some of that attention that Wesley had given me. Yet I had wished so many times for history to start over, so that I could meet Aaron first and avoid the heartbreak of losing Wesley. Little had I guessed that Aaron would hurt me, too, if not quite at the same level.
Edmund returned that night. He looked at me with a somber expression while I tried not to drool over his immense power and presence. As soon as he saw me he wrapped his long arms around my body and pulled me close. Aside from the lack of a heartbeat, I felt at ease in the vampire’s arms. I knew he wasn’t a threat to me in any way; after all, he wanted to live to see another night. I knew from experience that my blood was poison to their kind. For him it would be suicide to attack me.
“His family sends their love,” he said into my ear.
“Well, that’s so nice of them,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I didn’t really blame them, but there was no one else I could blame.
“They wish you well in your journey. They don’t know what you are or what you’ll do for them. They don’t know that they will see you much sooner than they anticipate.” He laughed. “I told them nothing, young one. I want to see their faces when they figure it out for themselves.”
“By then it won’t matter,” I mumbled. “He’ll have no recollection of the feelings he once had for me.” I sighed. “Won’t he know there was something, anything at all?”
“He’ll remember there was something, but it won’t come rushing back to him when he sees you,” Edmund said softly. There was a catch in his throat and he changed the subject. “I also bring news to the mortal boy of his father.”
“Please tell me that he’s okay,” I groaned. “Adam won’t be able to bear it if someone tells him his father isn’t.”
“No, no. His father is doing quite well, in fact. I think he has finally grasped this whole thing, the idea that there is more in the world than just humans. He actually finds Kim’s water play quite amusing.” Edmund smiled and let me go. “I’ll find you again shortly and answer any and all questions that I can.” With that he stepped away and went to find Adam.
I had a great many questions for him. I wanted to know what Aaron was becoming, what changes he was undergoing. I wanted to know if his family were on our side, or would they be recruited by the opposing side. I wanted to understand how Aaron could just forget how he felt about me. I mean, really, how does a person just forget they loved someone? I never questioned my love for Wesley. I accepted it, no matter how destructive it became. If I saw him standing on the battlefield across from me, sword in the air, I wouldn’t hesitate in rushing him, of course. I might love him, yes, but that was for the boy he had been, not the creature he might become.
I wondered if that was how I might come to feel about Aaron. Edmund had said that I would be seeing them sooner than they anticipated. They had no idea who I was or that it was my war they were choosing to fight in, no matter which side they chose. How would I be able to look at Aaron and not want him to remember how he had felt for me? I may not have wanted his love in the beginning, but by the end it was his love for me that made me care so much about him.
What was once supposed to be nothing more than a filler had become something very different. Maybe I didn’t have it in me to use someone for my amusement, after all, or maybe the guilt that I felt had made its way into my conscience.
I had to get some air. I was starting to suffocate, thinking about what was going on with those that I cared about. I stepped out into the cool night air and took a deep breath. This place was captivating; why had my parents ever left it? They had enough power to make the town forget what happened with John. Then again, perhaps that would be interfering with the forces of nature…
Was Helen the nature spirit?
I couldn’t help but think it as I looked at the sweep of green grass that led to a cluster of trees to the right of the field. If she harnessed the power of earth, wouldn’t that make her Mother Nature herself? I laughed to myself at the idea. We were vessels for the shards; we weren’t the shards themselves. Or were we? I was starting to feel like this wasn’t the end. There was far more to the story of our being than what we were told, or learned over time.
I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and gazed out at the beauty before me. Then my eyes fell on the round burnt patch in the center of the yard and I had to look away. I had definitely made my mark on the land.
Suddenly I started feeling dizzy and had to fight to stay on my feet. I failed miserably and crashed to the ground. I just didn’t feel any pain.
***
“Oh, shit, Dawn! I didn’t know you were still awake.”
Wesley’s voice came out of the darkness as I stood up, rubbing my face.
“Oh, I quite enjoy being summoned to the astral plane and arriving face first,” I groaned.
“Again I apologize for the… heck, I hope it doesn’t bruise.”
I looked up and saw he
was standing right in front of me. I took a step backwards.
“You look… well!” I said, noting the color in his face. His eyes were almost as blue as the day I met him, and his lips were pink. He didn’t look like he was dying. Sudden hope surged in me.
Wesley held up a hand in warning. “I’m not… this,” he said quietly, indicating himself. “This is a projection. I’m lying in a tent in the middle of New Mexico, nearing my last breath.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I argued. “The last few times you summoned me you looked so ill. Unless…” His appearance unnerved me, no matter how much he tried to call it a projection.
“Something is amplifying my power,” he muttered vaguely. “Listen. I know about Aaron. I overheard her talking in my tent the other night. I may not have been there in body, but I do hear things. The good news is that he was taken to an undisclosed location. Neither Miranda nor her mother have been able to locate him.”
He took a step toward me. I automatically took one back.
“I don’t know where he is, before you ask,” I said slowly. “They won’t tell me.”
“Probably for the best that they don’t. However, where are you at? It took you longer to get here than usual.”
“I’m at home,” I lied.
He smiled. “No, you aren’t, Dawn. Honestly, I tell you where I am… why can’t you tell me where you are?” His smile was funny; it wasn’t my Wesley’s smile.
The Wardens Boxed Set Page 50
