“Maybe she thinks you got over it,” I laughed, setting down my mug.
“She would be stupid to think that. You know what there is to do in Purgatory?” She looked at me blankly.
“No,” I said, shrugging. The two times that I had been there were for a reason. I suspected because it was untraceable by anyone else.
“If you are lucky you can get out for short periods of time. However, Sheridan made my stay quite exotic.” She rolled her eyes. “When I heard the chanting to bring your friend back I latched on to her and prayed that she would get me out.”
“Lucky for you it worked.” I nodded at her.
“Yes. Still I feel bad for latching on to you the way that I did. Not that the earth girl isn’t powerful, you just have something more to you. I think it was the blessings.” She took a sip of her coffee and looked towards the counter. The way her eyes shot around the room, I had a feeling there were other reasons besides this.
“Want me to show you?” I asked as her head shot back towards me as I grabbed a pan and she blushed.
“Would you mind? I have a feeling in this modern era I’m going to have to learn to take care of myself.”
“No, I wouldn’t mind. Just warning you it isn’t as easy as it looks the first time.”
I got up and pulled out the pancake mix from the cabinet. This was one thing that wouldn’t go bad if we left it behind. Along with the cereals and other dry goods. I’m sure my mother had left it here for situations like this. It was a safe house.
“Should I change?” she asked, pointing at her high-dollar t-shirt.
“My mom has an apron around here somewhere. Just have to find it.”
I opened the drawers until I came across my mother’s cooking apron. I had never noticed she had wings stitched on the front. I muffled a laugh and threw it to Prudence.
***
Aside from the burnt pan, the charred towel, and the smoke detectors going off, Prudence got the whole concept of pancakes down. Mind you, I say concept, I didn’t mention anything about taste. The woman was a wrecking ball in the kitchen. By the time we were done the place looked like it had been hit by a cloud of cocaine. Not that I knew what that was like, of course.
The others joined us shortly after the fire alarm started going off. They sat at the table, more in amusement than actually helping with the whole teaching part. Yet they were as nice as they could be as they choked down the burnt pancakes, chasing them with coffee and water.
Prudence sat at the table making faces with each bite. I just opted to sit and stare, knowing that I was going to have to get this cleaned up before we left.
“You have the eye?” Kelly asked as she put her paper plate into the trash can.
“Yeah, Prudence put it in some magical elixir so that it won’t turn to dust before we get to El Paso.” I touched her shoulder.
“It sucks I don’t remember what happened.” She shook her head.
“What did happen?” Adam asked and I glared at him. He knew damn well what had happened. The news had traveled fast to him. Most likely because he lived in the same damned town as Wesley.
“We had an altercation. Marshall got the eye,” I said simply, narrowing my eyes at him.
I didn’t know why I was angry at him right then. Since I came back from the camp there seemed to be some sort of issue with my emotions. I was always angry it seemed. Something in me sparked this emotion and every stupid thing set it off. Yeah, I might be able to hold it in but for the most part it was ripping through me. I had no right to be mad at Adam, he had done nothing wrong. Well, aside from leaving me two days earlier than he had said. I had been the one to hurt him but here I was, throwing all my anger at him like every last dumb thing in my life was this man’s fault.
“You wiped out almost a whole coven. The three of you.” Adam stood up. “That is why I am here.”
“Why? Why are you here?” Marshall asked with a hint of protectiveness in his voice.
“Because you guys are idiots. You cannot just go around attacking groups of hybrids or purebloods. There are reasons why the queen’s army is growing and ours is shrinking. Because of crap like last night. Sever the bonds before you can even make them. Don’t be surprised if not every vampire coven in the area isn’t plotting her death.” He pointed at me.
“Who died and put you in charge?” Marshall asked. His eyes were changing colors. Not sure what it meant but I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.
“You want to go there, shifter?” Adam was enraged. Something I had never seen him do before was blow up on one of our people.
“Stop,” I said, putting my hands up.
“No, just because he’s a protector doesn’t mean he runs the show. You are the warden, this is your gig.” Marshall looked at me as I put my hands down.
“He is the warden’s protector,” Prudence chimed in. “His power is elevated when she is present.”
“He’s a boy,” Marshall scowled.
“He may be a boy but God chose him. I want to tell you a story. One that I heard right before we left.” She crossed her legs in her delicate fashion and wiped the remaining flour from her arm.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Book of the Protector
“Dawn was conceived as any child is. She was carried through her gestational cycle and born healthy. Her path was chosen long before she ever came into this world. Her parents were unaware of this path as it was given in the forms of blessings.
“It had always been customary for the wardens to be born of demon mother and angel father. When a child was conceived in these meetings the father was hardly ever aware that they had a child. The mother would deliver the child on earth and leave it to the care of the chosen family.
“In the mix are humans. Usually when one is chosen by either God or Lucifer, great power is bestowed upon them. A trace of the power runs in the blood, hence passing down generation to generation the gene. That is how Nick became a prophet and Chase a protector.
“When Vetis and Puriel were stripped of their wings it was not meant as punishment, but more to test a theory. What would happen if the warden child was raised by both her parents instead of with a chosen set? It was not expected that the two would split. It is one thing to have centuries of trysts with each other, another to be bound to them by name and child. Obviously a demon and angel marriage wasn’t one that was ready to happen.
“When Puriel returned Dawn to her father after five years of separation, she already had the resultant mother’s powers in her veins. Then she pulled more powers from her father when she was with him for the next seven years. Though her appearance is not balanced, her mind is.
“Anyway, there are few churches in the world that know the path of the angel or the path of the demon. Puriel knew of one: the church she had taken Shawn to when he was just a baby. They feared for her being on earth with nobody to protect her. If she was killed before she was forgiven then she would become just another soul and locked in Purgatory.
“Chase is much younger than he appears. The illusion was set in place to give humans the idea that he was aging. The church put Puriel in communication with the family. Chase was twenty at the time. The gene was in his blood but it had yet to take effect. In the case of Nick, his power was needed before he ever hit forty. Once the power is released the aging process slows.
“When Chase is near Puriel his power increases. He is able to channel from her gifts that only she can release. When he is not near her he is more human, aging faster. Chase was only bound to Puriel by God, so when Dawn moved in he had to change his course of action. Protecting two beings was going to cause issues. I don’t know all these issues, I just know that it was hard on his body.
“There has never been a protector assigned to a warden. This is the first time in history that it has happened. Maybe it is because the last three have died due to a flip in power. Maybe it’s because she just can’t keep herself out of trouble. Either way, someone s
omewhere thought she needed her own protector.
“So the power was passed to the one person that Dawn drew power from. Someone who, when she was in need, gave a small part of themselves in order to keep her from dying. On that night last December, when Dawn’s body was ripped of innocence, breaking her balance, Adam found her. When he did, he passed to her a share of his own innocence. This is what saved her manifesting back to her prior form. She gained just enough of the virtue to bring her back from the brink of death.
“Adam was chosen, plain and simple. God looked down on him and found his faith and morals to be satisfactory. So, because of this, he blessed the boy with the power of the protector. You have to realize, this is an amazing feat as God has not blessed a human in centuries, relying mostly on the shared gene in order to protect the earthbound.
“When Adam is near he is powerful. Not only does she heighten his ability but he heightens hers. He brings out the powers in her that only she knows about. You see, there are polar opposites in this story. Wesley feeds the darker side of her while Adam feeds the lighter. These two together bring her to a point where power is beyond measure.
“So when you ask who died and put him in charge, well, Dawn is the one who put him in charge. The moment he took the power presented to him by God he took control over her life. Her choice to listen to him is, of course, up to her, but he is the logic while she is the brawn.”
We sat there in silence, allowing Prudence the ability to tell the story without interruption. By the end everyone was wide-eyed and confused. Only I had an understanding of what she was saying.
I had been dying that night in the alley. If it had not been for Adam saving me I would have fallen victim to John. I would have joined Krista in Purgatory, leaving the other two vulnerable when the time came. Nobody cared to share this with me at the time as they were still trying to protect me from my own destiny.
“See,” Adam smacked me on the arm. “I’m the logical one.”
I leaned back and glared at him.
***
We left the house a few hours later, after cleaning the kitchen, doing a load of laundry, and packing extra clothes from the closets. I grabbed what I could of the dried goods left in the cabinet and we headed out in two cars. I had the lead in the Bentley while Adam took up the rear in his SUV.
After Prudence’s speech, Marshall had decided he would ride with Adam in order to build some form of male bond. Being the only two males in a group with three females I understood why he wanted to break away from the estrogen.
It wound up being beneficial for Adam to come along, since he had a large trunk in which to put our stuff and it wasn’t now all smashed in the back of my beautiful car.
It was just under a thousand miles from the little town we lived in to the old place in El Paso. This meant we were looking at approximately 15 hours of driving before we would make it to our location. We technically had one day left to get there so we opted to split shifts driving: four hours on and four hours off.
We would stop for meals when we got hungry and of course make pit stops for gas and other automotive necessities. The drive was nice, aside from the constant yapping going on between Kelly and Prudence during the first four hours of the trip. It was like sitting next to a history professor. I never asked how Prudence knew all this stuff. I figured that she had picked it up by being in the presence of my mother and father. I didn’t know she had connections with the creators. That alone was quite interesting.
We stopped for lunch at around three at a little café outside of a small no-named town. The five of us looked odd when we walked in, everyone’s heads turning. This was most likely a dive that only locals came to. Here we were, looking like a bunch of kids coming in off the highway.
“Nice car you have there, beautiful,” one of the guys said as we took our seats. “Is that one of those rich girl cars?”
I chose to say nothing. Probably one of the smartest things that I had done in a long time. We ordered our drinks and food quickly. I could tell the others wanted out of there just as badly as I did.
“Where you kids headed?” the nice waitress asked us as she delivered our lunches to the table.
“El Paso,” Marshall said to the lady and she gave him a warm smile.
“That’s one hell of a drive. Make sure you kids get some food to go.” She gave Marshall a wink and turned to walk away.
I heard the table bounce as Kelly’s toes collided with Marshall’s shin and he let out a quick gasp. I chuckled and eyeballed my cheeseburger.
“What was that all about?” he whimpered, rubbing his wounded leg.
“Do you really have to flirt with the waitress?” She eyeballed him, her violet eyes flashing.
“It wasn’t flirting! She asked where we were going.” He defended himself.
“And you gave her that smile,” she hissed.
“I just smiled. That is all I did.”
We paid our tab and left the waitress an extra nice tip. I wasn’t expecting there to be a party around my car when we made it to the parking lot.
“You sure don’t look like you can afford a car like this,” the guy from inside the diner said, running his hand over the hood of my Bentley.
“It was a gift,” I said dryly, wanting to just get in my car and get out of this godforsaken town.
“Did you sell your soul for a car like this?” The guy’s eyes flashed and I felt Marshall grab my hand and yank me towards him.
“He’s a cursed one, Dawn. And he’s not the kind we get back at the compound. I can smell something different about him.”
I turned my head to him and shut my eyes. When my head shot around I was not expecting a fist to come flying at my face. I ducked once and rolled to my right, pulling myself back to my feet. When my hand came up, lightning instantly shot from my fingers and locked around the man’s body. He fought against the electric current as it slowly burnt strips into his body.
Prudence conjured a dense fog around us so the humans inside the diner could not see. I watched her mouth move and contort in odd ways. Marshall and Kelly stayed back, their specific characteristics were not needed at this instant and it was more likely for one of them to be hurt by the cursed one.
I felt a sharp pain shoot through my chest and realized he had thrown something in my direction. What it was I did not know but by the sound of Kelly’s scream, I concluded it was a clean shot through me. At this rate I would heal quickly.
“What do you want?” I screamed at him, pulling the electric strips tighter around his body.
“I don’t want anything from you.” He suddenly knew how to speak normally now that I had him in my grasp.
“Where does your loyalty lie?” I demanded.
“With the queen,” he slowly hissed at me. I felt nothing but anger shoot through my soul.
Everything went back to this self-proclaimed monarch. No matter who I ran into it seemed they were loyal to her.
The fire was slowly making its way to my fingertips. Dancing down my arm, the emotions it caused made my heart ache. When the fire took the path of the electric current I was surprised at the sight. From one hand the red fire shot quickly down the line towards this cursed one, while from the other the white flame moved slower and with more force. I found myself instantly wishing I didn’t have to do this to him. The only thing he had done that would be considered bad was trying to punch me.
When the fire hit his skin, he instantly burst into flames, screaming profanities and flailing his arms like a madman. How come the first thing that goes through the minds of any of my victims is to flail? You would think that they would follow protocol. Stop. Drop. Roll.
Adam opened the back end of the SUV and took out his sword, spinning it in his hand as I had done on countless occasions. He was fluid with the weapon, as if the metal was one with his body. My mother had trained him. What else would I expect from him?
With a flick of his wrist, I watched as the f
ire in his blood set the blade in a ruby glow. It was mesmerizing watching him. Like one of those movie gods, even though it is a graphic effect put in at the end of filming, it still looks awesome.
Taking a few steps towards the cursed one he reached back with the sword and held out his unarmed hand, first pulling water from the atmosphere then drenching the body, putting out most of the flames. Before the flame could be dissipated completely, he swung the sword in one fluid motion. The body went limp at his feet as the cursed one’s head rolled in the other direction, eyes still wide and his mouth open.
“The power of another warden,” Prudence marveled as she motioned for Marshall to move the body of the dead cursed one.
“Rose taught me a few things.” He gave her a smile. He was obviously amazed at the range of power he had just exuded. If he could have he would have given himself a pat on the back.
“Unbelievable,” Prudence said in a whisper. Even her mind was blown.
When the fog cleared, the remaining men who had stood with the assailant were gone. There was no sign that they had retreated back into the diner. The only plausible explanation was they had teleported or created a portal to get them out of there before they suffered the same fate. Someone had to tell the queen that one of her henchmen was dead.
“She wasn’t going to make this easy.” I said as the pain in my chest started to fade.
“Did you expect anything less? You of all people should know she doesn’t play by the rules,” Marshall growled.
“You of all people should know,” I laughed at him.
“Are you OK?” Kelly came close to me and started checking my chest. Aside from a large amount of blood on the front and back of my shirt the wound had nearly healed.
“Yeah. Did you see what it was?” I asked her, rubbing the tender spot on my chest.
“No. It flew past me and then disappeared. It almost looked like he was trying to imbed a tracking device into your flesh,” she said, pointing behind us.
“Fantastic,” I groaned.
The Wardens Boxed Set Page 105
