I pinched the skin under my chin. Elijah jumped to his feet and held a plastic tub over Lydia’s head. “Chocolate biscuit cake. Lucas didn’t want to get it for you because he thinks you cheated on the way here.”
Lydia ripped the box out of his hands and shoved a piece of cake in her mouth before turning on Lucas. I reached for a cupcake and sat back to watch the brawl unfold.
“You’re super quiet. You okay?” I glanced up at Jasmine. Her hazel eyes were soft.
“Tell me about the Silent Homes.” The words burst out of my mouth before my brain had registered them.
Jasmine pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. “The Silent Homes?”
“Yes. Please, Jasmine.”
She scooted closer. “Did Catherine never talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Eve forbade her from telling me anything about the hidden world.”
Jasmine cast a glance around before standing, holding a hand out to help me up. “Let’s walk.” She waved to the others, gesturing toward the people playing guitars and drums by the fire and covering her ears.
Jasmine and I walked in silence until we reached the dirt path. The children were watching a magical light display that danced across the night sky. We kept going until we reached the woods. Jasmine settled herself in the crook of a large tree, bent and misshapen by the force of the Atlantic winds. “Okay, shoot. What do you want to know?”
I sat down on a branch, digging my heels into the ground to stop myself from sliding onto Jasmine’s lap. “The Silent Homes are where the Guardians keep the forbidden they hunt down, or are handed over, I know that.” I ran my fingers along the rough bark. “Eve thinks Cat was fifteen when she came to live with us, but we don't really know. She was tiny. As small as most twelve-year-olds. She had come straight from a Silent Home, rescued by some Demon Eve knew.”
Jasmine laid a gentle hand over mine. “And she was pregnant?”
I took a deep breath and the tangy taste of sea air coated my lips. “Yes. She was pregnant.”
Jasmine exhaled slowly and leaned her head against the gnarled tree trunk. “My grandfather was a Guardian. My mom’s father. My family is direct line descendants of one of the Elders, so he ended up with a pretty decent job. That’s how it works most of the time for Angels.”
“Why? Do the Elder’s check in on their descendants? Even after two thousand years?”
Jasmine shook her head. “No. Nobody sees the Elders. The High Council consults with them sometimes, but that’s about it. Mostly they stay in the Sanctuary, but Angels believe that those who can trace their lineage back to an immortal Elder are superior: more powerful, greater magic.”
“Are they?”
“I think it’s total crap. It makes no sense. The Elders could have no more offspring after they absorbed the power of the Great Divide, and they never returned to their families, so their transformation couldn’t have had any bearing on the genetic code they had already passed down. I’m a direct line Angel, on my mother’s side, and I have to bust my ass to master every skill. I’m pretty good at manipulating space, but I worked really hard at it. Lucas has no direct line blood and he’s a gifted warrior: fast, clever, strong. Brave. It’s just snobbery. Something people like Megan use to make themselves feel superior.”
“But your grandfather’s lineage scored him a great job anyway?” I asked.
Jasmine gave me a rueful hint of a smile. “My grandfather was appointed the as Head of Liaison with the Demon population in the Middle East.”
“Demon Liaison? Is that a fancy way of saying Demon killers?”
Jasmine gave me a puzzled look. “No. Guardians and Demons get on all right most of the time. Demons pretty much operate their own ruling system, and the head of each Demon community liaises with the Guardians to keep the peace. If the Demons don’t do anything to upset the veil, then the Angels will ensure the Demons have pretty comfortable lives here. It’s a delicate balance, but my grandfather enjoyed working with the Demons.”
Jasmine rubbed her wrist. “It was a favorable position for him. He was elected to the High Council and was appointed to be the chief of Guardian affairs in Africa and Asia. He was in charge of all sections, except for the Silent Homes. Everyone knows about the Silent Homes— it’s the law, Grace. Half-Born are forbidden for the safety of both races. That’s the whole reason for the veil, why the magical world is hidden from the Humans. So that Angels and Humans don’t have the chance to procreate. Humans don’t know about magic so they can’t be drawn to it. And Angels ignore their desire for Human companionship because they know the fate that would await any offspring of such a union. That’s the plan, anyway.”
I chewed at my fingernails. Jasmine glanced at me and continued speaking. “The institutions are run by a subsection of the Guardians. It’s kind of like an open secret, everybody knows, but nobody wants to be part of it.”
I kicked at the dirt, thinking of Peter’s history lesson.
“One day, at an international summit, a Demon approached my grandfather and slipped him a postcard before disappearing. There was an address for a location in my grandfather’s jurisdiction on one side, and on the other side were Shakespeare’s words, ‘To thine own self be true.' The address turned out to be one of the Silent Homes. When he inquired he was told it was off limits and he needed to leave it alone, but my Baba Joon was a stubborn man. He didn’t like being kept in the dark about Guardian affairs on his own turf.”
Jasmine stared into the sky. “He said that it was like waking up one day and realizing that the soundtrack to his life was playing in the wrong key. He needed to see this Silent Home for himself. ” She paused and pulled her hood up over her dark curls. “So, he used his powers to gain access to the facility.”
“Did he fight his way in?” Eve had spent my entire life preparing me to run from the Guardians, I was struggling to imagine a single man taking on an entire security team.
Jasmine grimaced. “Not exactly. My grandfather was a very powerful man. He was one of the youngest people ever to earn a place on the High Council. In theory, the Elder Council hold ultimate power over the hidden world, but only two of the nine Elders can leave the sanctuary at one time, and they’re so out of touch now... I guess two thousand years ago granting the power of the veil to nine people seemed to be the best course of action. But in reality, the High Council effectively has complete control.”
“Your granddad got the High Council to back him up?”
Jasmine shook her head. “No. That’s not how it works. The High Council doesn’t bend the rules. But each High Council member does get a small share in the power of the divide. They are gifted with the ability to break into the consciousness of others and to manipulate their perception of reality.”
I scrubbed my face with my knuckles. “So, the High Council members are mind readers?”
“We call them mind-breakers. Sensing thoughts is one thing but manipulating someone’s reality— it was the first time my grandfather had done it of his own accord.” She hesitated, looking down at her hands. “He said it was like a prison inside the Silent Home. Kids, women, men. All held in their own rooms. Coming out for meals and exercise, and to use the library or the gym. Serving a life sentence just for being born. Abandoned by their families or taken by force.”
Jasmine ripped a chunk of bark off with her fingertips. “But that wasn’t the worst part.”
I felt the ache at the back of my throat expanding, and a bitter taste crept under my tongue as Jasmine continued.
“He was refused access to the cellar, so he manipulated the guard into opening the barrier. He found a handful of cells, made just for children. The first two cells he checked were empty, but in the third, there was a small child pressed against the back wall, naked from the waist up. When my grandfather came in the boy didn’t move an inch, he just watched him. My grandfather said the kid was bruised from his toes up to his skull and that his platinum hair was almost black with dried blood.”
Jasmine nodded. Her eyes were bright with emotion. “Baba took him and ran, smashing open the other cells to see if he could find any other kids in the basement.”
It hurt to breathe. “Did he find any other children?”
Jasmine pressed her fist against her face. “None that were still alive.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to swallow, waiting for the burning sensation to subside. “What did your granddad do?”
Jasmine sniffed and swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “He took my grandma, my mom, and Cain and they ran. Headed for New York City. They say that the Shadow Children have been around since the earliest days of the Great Divide, but they have only survived by being careful. Elusive. The organization was initially run with a clandestine cell structure, each cell operating in total independence. Even now only the masters communicate with the other cells directly. It means if the Guardians catch us, we have very little to tell them. No matter how hard they try to make us talk.”
I shuddered, and Jasmine squeezed my knee. “But the Shadow Children do have contacts. Baba asked one of his Demon connections to put the word out that there was a hunted child in need of help and here we are, a generation later.”
I slumped down on the branch and felt it bending under my weight. “Why did they pick on Cain, Jasmine? Why those other children?” I clenched my jaws together, fighting the mental image of tiny, bruised bodies. “I know they hate Half-bloods, or they’re frightened of what Half-bloods could draw on the world, but what could a bunch of kids have done to make them so angry? So vicious?”
Jasmine couldn’t look at me, closing her eyes as she ran a finger across the puckered skin above my heart. My mark. Demon-Born children. I bit down on my lip, and Jasmine pulled her brows together. “I am so sorry, Grace. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
I gripped her hand. “No. I have to learn this stuff. I’d guessed some of it anyway. I remember the day Catherine arrived, and I saw Sam’s back that night at Hidden Cottage.” My throat closed in again, and I pressed my knuckles into my eyes. “His back, Jasmine, what could they have done to him for those scars to still be so deep?”
Jasmine’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, and her voice rougher than gravel. “When we were in New York all the survivors went for therapy sessions, except Sam. I think Cain thought that once we got here, maybe Emmanuel would be able to get him to open up, but he just refuses to go. Even Catherine tried to get him to come with her this week.”
I cut across her, stung. “Cat’s been going to therapy sessions? Since when?”
Before she could answer, we heard raised voices in the distance. Jasmine sprang to her feet and pulled me behind her back. We both held our breath. The bells rang out, rooting us to the ground. Three bells. We were under attack.
Chapter Eighteen
Jasmine grabbed my hand and sprinted toward the path, but I couldn’t lift my legs to follow her. I was struggling to breathe, gasping air and releasing it again before any oxygen could reach my lungs. Jasmine gripped my shoulders. “Grace, stop it. You can’t fall apart now.”
Her tone was urgent, but there was tenderness in her eyes. I took a shuddering gasp, willing myself to be more than a puddle of fear, and moved toward the path. People rushed by us, charging back toward the house.
“Jasmine? Grace?” It was Lucas. He was nearby, and his frantic cries were being swallowed by the gathering winds. The second we emerged from under the canopy of twisted branches, I felt it. The powerful draw of pure emptiness. People were milling around us, pulling me toward the house, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sky above us.
Every trace of the bright stars had been obliterated by the mass of shadows, writhing and crawling ten meters over our heads. Spirit Demons. I opened my mouth to scream, but only a strangled whisper escaped from my dry lips. They knew me. I could feel them calling, reaching for all my darkest thoughts. Nobody’s child.
I crushed the palms of my hands against my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to escape the suffocating ache, but there was no release. Despair wound itself around my heart. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t live in a world so full of darkness. My arms lifted toward the sky, ready to embrace the relief that emptiness could bring me.
The sensation of hands on my flesh jolted me like an electric shock. My eyes flew open. Sam. I struggled to regain full control of my senses. A flash of emotion illuminated his face, but it was gone before I could comprehend it. I wanted to reach out and touch his cheek. To turn the light on behind his eyes. And I hated myself for wanting him so badly. He tightened his grip on my shoulders. “Don’t let the Spirits have power over you, Grace. It’s not real. They’re leeches.”
A groan of pain to my right ripped my attention away from Sam’s face. My stomach lurched. “Jasmine!”
She was kneeling on the grass, cradling her head with gritted teeth. Elijah was sweating as he crouched down beside her, a deathly pallor creeping over his coffee colored skin. Sam shouted at the others to come back, and Cain turned like a boomerang, cutting his way through the chaos with razor sharp precision.
He looked from Jasmine to Elijah, pulling the handle of his Spirit Blade from his pocket. A blinding flash appearing as he wrapped his fingers around the metal. The other Shadow Children began to do the same, falling into formation around Jasmine and Elijah.
“Cain, what’s going on?” I couldn’t hide my panic.
Cain shouted at me to run and get help, his eyes never leaving Jasmine and Elijah. I hesitated, and Elijah raised his head with visible effort. “We need to open the gates. The New York cell is under attack too, they’re trying to escape, their wards have been breached.” He lifted his hands to shield his face. “Run, Grace. They’re dying.”
I ran. My feet barely touched the ground as I flew across the field, clearing the small bushes without adjusting my speed. I focused on the light spilling from the open doorway in the distance. Terror slithered in the pit of my stomach like a python as the dark shadows overhead followed me. As soon as I was within earshot of the house, I pumped my legs faster, screaming for Eve.
Peter appeared in the doorway, spreading his arms wide to embrace me. “Peter, you need to go help Cain and Elijah. Something’s wrong.”
I steadied myself against the doorframe, waiting for him to gather the others. I saw a flicker of movement behind him. Eve. I pushed past Peter’s still form and flung myself into her arms. “Eve, you have to come, now! Cain needs you, something is wrong.”
Eve headed for the door before I had finished speaking. Peter stepped aside to let her pass, but she grabbed him firmly by the wrist. “Come.”
He resisted, waving a hand toward the stairs. “The children, Eve. We are under attack. They are unprotected, it is our duty to stay with them.”
“They are all making their way to the old chapel. It’s charmed. Catherine, Jabol, and Paul are with them. And Emmanuel.”
Eve ran, yanking Peter after her unsteadily. I looked around for his cane, afraid to watch as Eve dragged him along behind her. Unable to find it, I took hold of his free arm, linking him at the elbow. A distant shriek pierced the silence. Eve let go of Peter and darted forward as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. She disappeared through a narrow gap in the trees.
I strained my ears to hear what was happening on the field, struggling to control my frustration at Peter’s awkward pace. The seconds felt like an eternity until we rounded the corner and got a full view of the scene unfolding. I shrank against Peter in horror. The gate was open.
This time I could see the slip with my own eyes. A wound in the fabric of space. The ragged edges of the slip were gaping, and Elijah and Jasmine were desperately trying to seal the corners to prevent the gap from widening. Through the opening, I saw into a building that was swarming with Spirit Demons. Lucas, Megan, and Lydia were helping people out onto the grass. Frank, Jose, and some others were running in and out, dragging and lift
ing more people through the gate. I pressed my lips together to stifle a whimper as I watched the Spirit Demons oozing through the opening.
Peter lurched forward, his voice booming. “Close the gate, seal it at once.”
Cain, Sam, and Prya were holding their Spirit blades in the air. Cain didn’t even turn his head at the sound of Peter’s order. His arms shook with the effort of trying to deter the wave of Spirit Demons circling the field. Lucas ran toward Peter, both palms facing the older man. His tone was full of desperation. “Peter, there are still children in there.”
Peter knocked his hands to the side. “You fools! We have our own children to protect.”
He made toward the gate, his hands kneading and pulling at the fabric of the air. Lucas scrambled after him. “Please, Peter! Wait!”
Elijah stumbled backward as a burst of shadows forced its way through the slip, tearing the gap wider apart. Peter roared in a fury, reaching his hands out to seal the gate closed. Lydia flung herself at Peter’s back, screaming Frank’s name, but Peter shrugged her off. I stared open mouthed as the air beneath his fingers fused.
Cain called out to him. “Peter, let go, we have a man left on the other side.”
When he didn’t respond Cain cursed and made a dash toward Peter. The instant he lowered his blade the balance appeared to shift, and the Spirits descended. They wrapped themselves around the wounded and the dying on the ground. I pressed my hands to my face, terrified and useless to protect anyone. I hadn’t even mastered enough magical skill over the few days to light a Spirit Blade.
Sam grunted in frustration as he tried to hold back the swarm of Spirits. Cain realized his mistake too late, desperately battling to make his way back to Sam and Prya. It was hopeless. Peter had almost entirely sealed the gate, but we were overrun. I felt a howl of grief escape my throat.
Then I saw her. Eve was making her way along the edge of the field, blending into the night in her black clothing. Her lips moved as quickly as her feet. Her hands were trailing as she ran, fingertips dancing. Eve emerged from behind the dying bonfire. She skipped past the embers and made for where Sam and Prya stood with faltering blades, their strength almost spent.
The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series) Page 10