by Knight, TW
The bedroom door burst open and four guns snapped up.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rail skidded to a crouching stop, hands up. "Whoa! Don’t shoot!"
Cassidy dropped her gun and threw herself into his arms. Thank goodness Rail hadn’t been fully transformed or her family may not have heeded his request. His eyes were still blazing from battle, and his normally sun kissed skin was a few shades darker, but his wings and bone halo were gone, and his fangs were already retreating. "Are you okay?" She patted him down, looking for injuries.
"Yeah, sorry about your kitchen, Mrs. Long."
"Lord in Heaven!" Mrs. Long jumped to her feet. "My kitchen."
"We get attacked by a monster and all she worries about is the mess in the kitchen." Her husband laughed and pulled his wife into a bear hug.
"Is it over?" Cassidy searched Rail’s face for answers.
"We’re not out of the woods yet. Tam and Boomer have their hands full with the second skratar out back and police and rescue are on the way."
Questions bombarded the couple.
"What are we going to tell them?"
"What if that monster goes after the police?"
"Shut up!" Hands holding her head, she sank to the floor.
"Cassidy?" Rail knelt beside her. "Sweetheart? We’ll take care of it."
She nodded, but her fear couldn’t be dampened. "I brought this here. I brought those monsters to my home." Tears raced down her cheeks. "You tried to warn me."
"You didn’t choose to come here. You sure as hell didn’t ask for those bastards to find you. You didn’t break any rules." Rail stood, bringing Cassidy with him. "Now, up on your feet. Everything will be fine." His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. "Kaz and the others are here."
"Yo!" Boomer's voiced echoed up the stairwell. "All’s clear."
"What about the cops?" Pulling Cassidy with him, Rail leaned out the bedroom door.
"Kaz is dealing with them."
"How is this Kaz dealing with this?" Mr. Long stood, arms crossing his broad chest. "My kitchen is destroyed. There are dead monsters lying around. And the neighborhood, if not the whole city, had to have heard the guns and yelling…"
"It’s a gift." Rail winked at Cassidy.
"So, he’s another, uh, Fallen Angel?" Mrs. Long gave Rail a hard stare.
"It’ll be okay, Mom," Cassidy answered. "Kaz is like Rail's boss. He’ll take care of it."
"What will he do?" Charles Long took two steps, putting himself between Rail and his wife. His tone made it clear he would not allow any violence against the police.
"Kaz has the gift to change people’s perceptions. We all do to some degree, but he’s the strongest. He’ll make them believe they see what he wants them to."
"Just like that?"
Rail placed his hand over his heart. "I swear, no one will be injured. Kaz will come up with a plausible story to replace what they’ve seen and heard. No one will be the wiser."
"I’m going to hold you to that, young man." Charles jabbed a finger into Rail's chest.
Rail smiled broadly at being called a "young man" and clapped Charles on the shoulder. "No one’s called me that in a very, very long time."
* * *
"Will my parents be safe now?" Cassidy stood in the backyard with Rail.
"Yeah, once we’re out of here they should be," he pulled her closer, "but I gave your brother my cell number in case of an emergency." Brushing a kiss over her forehead, he whispered, "But don’t tell Kaz."
"Thank you." A door slammed, and Cassidy looked toward the house. "What a mess."
"We’ll take care of everything, sweetheart. Don’t worry; we’re experts at cover up." With a smile, he placed a kiss on her trembling lips.
"Cassie?" Tempe’s harsh whisper cut through the darkness.
Cassidy tensed like a schoolgirl caught making out. "Shh! Not so loud," she hissed.
Tempe jumped and spun around. "Cass?"
Rail chuckled. "She can’t see us." He wiggled his fingers. "Angel magic."
"Cass? Stop hiding. It’s been a long night."
Cassidy punched Rail in the arm. He dropped the cloak hiding them.
The other woman squeaked in surprise. "Damn it, Cassandra Antoinette Long," she squealed. "You took ten years off my life."
"Cassandra Antoinette?" Rail snorted.
"Don’t you start," Cassidy bristled. "No one is allowed to call me by my full name except Mom and Dad." With a playful punch, she pulled away. "Sorry, Tempe. I was hiding from all the unwanted visitors. How’s Mom?"
Tempe took Cassidy’s hand and squeezed lightly. "Your mom is doing fine. One of the other angel-men gave her something to drink. Said it was a precaution. You know, in case that thing scratched her. Now she’s acting kind of tipsy." She smiled.
Cassidy nodded, not prepared to tell her best friend that the drink given to her mother was blood. "Good. Good. I had that medicine too. Packs quite a punch. Did Kaz take care of the first responders?"
Her friend nodded. "They’re just leaving. Most of them have a kind of dazed look. I even think one of the officers questioned a neighbor about a false 911 call, but I don’t get why no one has mentioned or even noticed the huge hole in the side of the house."
"Magic, remember?" Rail answered nonchalantly. Tempe stuck her tongue out at him, making him laugh. "We’ll get plywood up tonight, and tomorrow Charles can play it off as remodeling. Should only take us a day or so to make arrangements for a new window. What do you think your mom would like?
"You’ll have to talk to Dad."
"I’ll get him for you. I think he wants to talk to Rail." Tempe gave Cassidy’s hand one more squeeze and turned to leave." Oh, I almost forgot. Your mom wanted to know if you’ll have time to go through your things before you leave."
"My things?" Cassidy’s brow furrowed. "What things?"
"You know, all the stuff from the apartment? Well, not all the stuff. I kept the furniture and a few things to remember you by." Tempe choked up for a moment. "We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again, but we hoped. It’s all in the garage."
The bottom dropped out from Cassidy’s stomach as though she’d leapt off a cliff. "They kept everything?" She bit her lower lip to keep a sob from escaping. She had expected her family to keep up the ruse and throw everything away. Bury it instead of her.
Tempe took a step toward Cassidy, stopped, turned, and ran back to the house. "I’ll get your dad."
As Tempe opened the back door, Boomer stormed out. "Kaz is in a holy rage over this, man."
Rail shrugged. "Figured. The bodies?"
"Taken care of, thanks to Zach. He wanted them for research."
"Did the second one have the markings?" Rail ran his hands through his hair.
"Didn’t look."
Rail gave a sharp nod. "What about the mess?"
"Clean up is under way."
"Thank you." Cassidy gave the other warrior a hug. Seeing her father exit the house, she ran to him. With a salute, Boomer made a hasty retreat.
Rail responded with a one-finger salute of his own from behind Cassidy, mumbling, "Coward," at his retreating friend.
"Daddy! Are you okay? How’s mom? Tempe said one of the guys gave her some, uh, medicine."
"She’s fine. We’re all fine." Charles stared at Rail hard enough to drive nails. "Your friends did their thing to the police and the EMT’s. It’s like nothing happened."
"I’m sorry, Daddy. This is entirely my fault. I should have made Rail take me back as soon as he showed up."
"No, it’s not." Rail moved behind her. "The skratars could have already been hunting in the area. Besides, you needed this time with your family." He gave her a quick kiss.
Mr. Long folded his arms across his chest. "Now what?"
"We’ll arrange for a contractor—"
"Fuck the window! I’m talking about the two of you." Charles ran his hands over his face. Huffing, he jabbed a finger at Rail. "Is this what you dragged my baby
into?"
"Daddy! Rail didn’t—"
"Yes," Rail answered over Cassidy’s protest.
"—drag me into anything." Cassidy stuttered to a stop. Rail's answer hit her in the heart. She took a deep breath and slowly released it. "I told you, Daddy. I was born into this. It’s my destiny."
"To Hell with destiny!"
"Dad, stop it."
"Don’t dad me," her father huffed. "I will not have my baby fighting monsters!"
Refusing to be cowed, Cassidy got up in her father’s face. "I don’t plan to!" Planting her hands on her hips, she leaned in closer. "And if I decide I want to, well, I’m an adult and you couldn’t stop me."
"No, but I could," Rail answered harshly. "I will not have you fighting, either," at her glare, he hastily added, "if I can prevent it."
The three of them stood, staring at each other until Cassidy broke the silence with a long sigh. "I’m sorry, Daddy."
Mr. Long rested his hands on her shoulders. "I’m sorry too. We just got you back, and you’re leaving again. Now that we know what you’re involved in…" He stepped back and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You," he jabbed a finger at Rail again, "you better protect her. I’m trusting her life to you."
"I know." Rail smiled at Cassidy. "I’ll do my best, but she’s a handful."
"That, she is." Pulling Cassidy into a crushing hug, her father whispered, "Be careful, okay?"
"I promise, Daddy. I’ll be as careful as I can."
Chapter Thirty-Seven
In the pre-dawn hours, Cassidy finished condensing her life into less than a four-by-four foot square and let out a tired breath.
Tempe looked up from the box she was repacking and tapped Cassidy on the leg. "What’s wrong?"
"Other than the obvious?" Cassidy looked around. She had the clothes she wanted, her computer and extra equipment, her MP3 player, her favorite books, CDs and DVDs, and another pile of personal things like her little marble statue, photos, and her grandmother's jewelry box. Her life. "I guess I’m done here."
The statement hit her in the chest, stealing the air from her lungs. Her legs wobbled and she tipped forward.
With a gasp, Tempe stood and embraced her. "Please don’t go," she mumbled into Cassidy’s hair. "It’s like you’re dying again. We can’t even keep in touch."
Still hugging, the two women sat on a box and cried in earnest.
"Hey, silver lining—I’m not really dead." Cassidy sniffled. "I’m just going back into witness protection." She smiled, but it felt like cheap makeup on her face.
"I know," Tempe took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, ",but I don’t have to like it."
Cassidy tucked a strand of hair back behind her friend’s ear. "I love you, sis."
"I love you too."
"You better take good care of my brother," she added as she stood, pulling Tempe with her. "If you hurt him, I’ll come back and kick your ass."
"You promise?"
"Yeah. I promise."
* * *
Rail stopped mid stride at the sight of the two women. "E’hem." He coughed to announce himself, their tear-stained cheeks making him uncomfortable. "Do you need more time?"
"We’re good." Cassidy sniffled and blotted her eyes with a tissue. "Just finishing up."
"I’m going to go see if there’s any coffee left." Tempe gave Cassidy another hug and hurried out, choking back a sob.
"I’m sorry you can’t stay longer," Rail offered, slipping his arms around her. He rubbed her back in slow circles as she cried.
"Well, at least this time I get to say a real goodbye," she mumbled against his chest. With a hiccup, she pulled back. "You’re not going to let Kaz erase their memories, are you?"
The concern in her eyes made his chest constrict. "No. Kaz won’t be working his gift on them, but he’s not happy about it."
"How did you talk him out of it?"
"I explained to him that your family is too deeply invested in the memories, and removing them could cause permanent damage. Then, I explained that you would kill him in his sleep, wait for him to return to life, and kill him again. Oh, I also told him I would gladly help." Some of Rail's tension eased when a laugh burst from Cassidy. "Are you finished packing?" He eyed the mountain of boxes surrounding them.
"Yeah. I guess." She smiled sadly and nodded toward an undersized pile consisting of five small packing boxes and three overstuffed suitcases. "My life."
"The offer still stands to buy you all new things."
"You can’t buy memories, Rail." Looking at the mountain of stuff around her, she said, "God, I’m a pack rat. Some of this stuff I didn’t even know I had kept."
"Like what?"
"Like these." Cassidy pulled a box off the reject pile, removed a handful of children’s books, and handed them to Rail "My parents gave me these when I was about six or seven during my question everything phase."
Rail accepted the books as though they were made of glass. Obviously, they were very special or she wouldn’t have saved them. "Why is the Sky Blue? Why Do Dogs Bark and People Talk?" He raised an eyebrow at the titles. "Where Did the Dinosaurs Go?"
"That was my favorite." Cassidy shrugged. "I always had this need to know the answers."
Abruptly, the world turned over, and Rail set the books down. "I just realized something," he whispered, his voice rough.
"What?" Concern rippled over Cassidy’s face.
"I never had the need to know about anything except fighting demons until…" he lifted his gaze to meet hers, "until around the same time you would have started reading these books."
"I don’t understand?"
Through their connection, Rail felt a sizzle of fear overshadowing Cassidy’s concern. "Don’t you see? I think I felt you. Felt the connection between us, even though you were a child. I think your curiosity woke something in me, in my soul."
She squeezed his hands tightly. "What are you trying to say?"
"I’m not sure, but I can tell you my quest to find my brothers and sisters only started about twenty years ago, shortly after I stumbled across another one of my brothers in the mountains of Tibet." When Cassidy motioned for him to continue, Rail let his mind drift back along the slippery slope of those memories. "He was bat-shit crazy. Talking to the air. Said he’d died too many times and couldn’t be around the living anymore. Told me to go away."
"What happened to him?"
"Don’t know. I respected his wishes and left him there, but I remember the overwhelming feeling that I needed to find the others. I needed to know what happened to my brothers and sisters.”
“And before you met this crazy angel in Tibet you never once thought about finding the others?” Disbelief colored her voice. "You never wondered what happened to them?"
"It crossed my mind once or twice, sure." He shook his head.
“But you and the guys had been together before then, hadn’t you?”
“During my wanderings, I stumbled upon others, including Kaz. Fought some demons and moved on, but I didn’t go looking for others. It’s been a hundred years or so since Kaz suggested a permanent partnership, and I said yes."
"I still don’t understand why you didn’t stick together all along. It’s just not logical.”
Rail tilted his head back to stare at the overhead light for a moment. "We lost contact with each other. Tam was the first to join us. A few months later, I found Boomer and Hacker while hunting in South America." Rail chuckled. "We got drunk to celebrate our first demon fight as a team, and Boomer christened us the Dark Knights of Heaven."
* * *
"Kaz said something about betrayal."
"Once we started losing our brothers and sisters to the dark road, we didn’t know who we could trust."
"No wonder you guys are paranoid," Cassidy chewed her lower lip for a moment, “but you seem to trust your friends.”
“With my life. We stumbled across a few others years ago, but they weren’t interested in staying more t
han a few months. Or days.” He chuckled. “One or two fled like we were keeping them prisoners.”
Cassidy rubbed her temples. "I still can’t believe the Hierarchy would want you to stay apart. Do you think Lucifer could have put his own kind of compulsion on you guys to enhance distrust in each other?"
"Maybe. I don’t know. Never thought about it." Rail stroked his thumbs across the back of her hands. "Never thought about a great many things until recently, but I do know I changed because you. Because you are my soul-keeper. My soul mate."
"Did any of your previous soul-keepers change you?"
Rail delved into his memories and returned to the present with a smile. "None that I can think of. Unless you want to count a brief obsession with poetry in the eighteenth century." He kissed her softly. "But that doesn’t surprise me. I knew the moment I held you that you were special."
"Liar!" She laughed. "You knew I belonged to someone, and that was it."
"Honestly, I felt that you were mine. Regrettably, it took a few hours for my brain to figure out what my heart already knew." Trailing his fingers up her arms, Rail pulled her in closer. "I was afraid. I didn’t want to hope it was true."
Suddenly somber, Cassidy pulled away and returned the books to their box. "You really never knew any of the others?" she asked, not looking at Rail.
"No, I never had the honor." Sadness rolled over him. Rail rested his hands on her shoulders. They were entering a territory he’d avoided thinking about for ages. "I felt them when they died and my soul moved on to someone else. I felt when my soul moved into you…I just didn’t know who you or any of the others were. I never met any of them. That’s been a new development for all of us." Noting a change in Cassidy’s stance, he stepped closer and slid his arms around her waist, locking his hands over her abdomen, and resting his chin on her shoulder. "But that’s not the answer you were looking for. What’s the real question you want to ask?"
"Nothing." She shook her head and pulled away a few steps. "It’s silly."
"Ask me." Rail kissed her hair and turned her around to face him.
"Did you have someone? You know someone special?"
"You mean lovers?"
"Never mind. I mean you’re thousands of years old…of course you must have had someone in your life at some point."