Evermore (The Night Watchmen Series Book 5)

by Candace Knoebel

  He’s scared, and he’s trying to hide it.

  There’s a small snag in my chest, like something cemented has cracked, but I shove the feeling away as the image of Katie’s tears move to the forefront of my mind. This is not a man to feel sorry for. He did this to himself. He pushes and pushes and uses people up until there’s nothing left of them, and this is the result.

  An ultimatum he can’t ignore.

  “You’re to get in, talk him down and find what info you can, and then come straight back to the city. With Sanura expected to wake any day now, and Eliza about to head back to the Darkyn Coven to gather the Intel we need about their whereabouts, we don’t have time to meddle in the Underground over a father/son bickering fest.”

  Jaxen’s fists are white-knuckled at his sides.

  “We got it. It’s cool. He’ll come around and let you back in on his dealings,” Gavin says surely.

  Mack lifts his head almost as if he doesn’t recognize the voice. His eyes move from Gavin to Cassie, and then he says, “Oh, right. Welcome back, Miss Reed. Glad Faye was able to pull you back from the brink of death.” He immediately goes back to messing with messages on the computer.

  “It wasn’t the brink, and it’s nice to see you haven’t changed much, Mack,” Cassie says, displeasure lashing out from the edge of her tongue. “The world wouldn’t be the same without a pompous ass in it.”

  He must pretend not to hear her, because he doesn’t look up when she says this. Doesn’t offer any snide words in return. “I’ve given Weldon the location Charlie and I have agreed upon in the Underground. He’s going to shadow walk you there, and has been instructed not to go a minute over an hour before bringing you back.”

  “But what if our time isn’t synced?” Weldon protests in a fake concerned voice. “You know how finicky watches can be.”

  A threat beats from Mack’s eyes.

  “Lighten up, brother. Charlie will be fine once he sees me. He just doesn’t like you, which is why I told you it should have been me dealing with him all along,” Weldon says.

  “Right… so we could all sit back and watch the world go to shit while you two share your little bromance,” Mack retorts. “Go. Now, before I change my mind. The clock has started.”

  I DIDN’T MISS THE SMELL of sulfur.

  The flare from the acidic scent turns my nose in and sours my stomach. There’s a dankness, like sitting water that never sees light. Freshly dug earth that never has a chance to be cleared from the lack of fresh air filtering through. I feel the images from the past clawing at my insides, begging for me to relive every inch of pain I’ve felt, but I shove it down as hard as I can.

  I don’t have to try very hard to realize where we are—the entrance to the Underground.

  “It seems we can’t get enough of this place,” Weldon murmurs, pulling Jezi closer to his side. I don’t have to pry into his mind to feel the fear yawning awake inside him. Even now, after everything, this place still and forever will have a tight hold around his throat. “Someone needs to knock,” he adds, looking between the brothers.

  It takes me a second to realize what Gavin’s doing when he looks to Jaxen. He lifts a lone eyebrow, and then holds out his hands, fist bared on his palm. “For old time’s sake?”

  Jaxen looks up at his big brother, the wonder in his gaze enough to kick start the warmth within me. He mimics his brother’s movements and then, on three, they reveal their choices.

  Jaxen’s rock to Gavin’s paper.

  Jaxen gladly knocks three times on the metal door leading to the bunker and steps back, wearing a grin that couldn’t be rivaled. The sound is hollow within the dimly lit tunnel. A couple of candles flicker near the door as Jaxen throws a look over his shoulder at Gavin and Weldon. A second later, light spills onto the ground and rushes up our bodies as a burly looking demon opens the door. A fluttering image of Bael rushes through my mind, and, for a split second, I find myself reaching for my flux, ready to kill until I realize he isn’t here.

  He is no more than a nightmare caught in a dreamcatcher.

  This place is nothing like I remembered it that night when Bael brought me here. The white walls have been covered with a soft yellow color, like morning light peeking in through a sheer curtain. The wooden desk has been replaced by a coffee table and colorful couches with cushions and blankets. Soft rock music plays through the speakers in the ceiling, making the space inviting and nothing like what it should be.

  Charlie is across the room perched in a high wing-backed chair. There is a demon on either side of him. The one on the left, nimble and short, has a large scar down the right side of his face, like a knife had been drawn across it, and gray skin covered in tattoos—their way of hiding their stigmas from us. The one on the right, the burly one who opened the door, is twice his size with pale yellow skin and patches of pink smattered across his face—scars from being burned.

  “Come in,” Charlie urges, waving his hand. “Please, sit anywhere.” He points to the couches as we stumble into the room, each of us looking around, just waiting for some kind of trap to spring up. I think he notices this, because he chuckles and says, “Nothing is going to happen to you. I swear. I just wanted to have a chat with my boys.”

  He gets up from his chair and makes his way over to us, a warm smile painted across his face. This is nothing like the Charlie I remembered from his cell back in Ethryeal City. He’s an open book. A kind heart being handed out like party favors as he stops in front of Gavin and grabs onto his shoulders.

  “I see you’ve done it, son. You got your girl back.”

  Gavin doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

  Charlie turns his attention to Cassie, his face warming as his eyes take her in. In this lighting, with his eyes clearer, there’s no mistaking where Gavin and Jaxen got their handsome ruggedness from. He’s as lean as Jaxen but has Gavin’s height and angular muscles. Stubble lines the edges of his chiseled jaw. The way he looks at people through his hooded gaze could almost feel intimate, as if he’s looking to the very depth of you. As if you are the very center of everything—a gift I’ve received from Jaxen more times than I can count.

  Cassie squirms as if she realizes this too.

  Charlie gives her an approving, charming smile that seems so personal, as if they are the only two in the room, and then he takes her hand in his and places a small kiss on top of it. “You are lovely,” he remarks.

  Cassie blushes and looks to Gavin like she isn’t sure if she should be accepting the compliment or not.

  Gavin is a steel wall. His shoulders are perfectly straight and his fist are hammers at his sides. “She is,” he says, his tone carefully even.

  Jaxen is on his toes, hand hovered over his flux, like he’s preparing to take off at any moment.

  Charlie notices this. Tilts his head to the side. “Look, son, what I said to you before…”

  “Was completely fucked up?” Gavin finishes for him, his voice a loud contrast against the cheery color of the room. The words trip one over the other as they come out of his mouth, as if they had been waiting for this very moment of release for a long time.

  Charlie drops his gaze for a moment and rubs at his jaw, almost as if he had just taken a hit. “Yes,” he says, the lightness of his tone shaved off by shades regret. “But I did what needed to be done.” He looks up at him. Looks at only him. “We eliminated Bael and took over the Underground, didn’t we?”

  Jaxen snorts and looks away just as Charlie’s gaze cuts over to him. There’s a sudden shift in the air, like a charged breeze warning of a storm to come.

  “In case you forgot,” Charlie says, his sincerity slipping away beneath the inky darkness swirling in his eyes, “we are hunters. Not pansies. We get shit done, no matter the cost.” His words are clipped and shortened. A fissure spreads through the humanity of his features, exposing the shadows within.

  I look to Gavin and Jaxen, who somehow find themselves side by side. Two units that will never be separated
. I feel like I’m watching them standing on a ledge, moments away from falling into the point of no return. A jump they will gladly take, as long as they do it together.

  Weldon inches between the three of them and leans toward Charlie’s ear. “Charlie, I don’t think goading is great for family reunions,” he says, a short, strained chuckle following the words. If anyone knows how quickly a demon can flip from charming to intimidating, it’s him.

  This doesn’t ease the tension building like water filling into the room, splashing over our ankles and climbing up our legs, inching closer and closer until we’re drowning in it, unable to ignore it.

  “You’re wrong,” Jaxen says, forcing himself closer to Charlie. “We are the hunters. You are nothing more than a demon who caught a lucky break. In case you forgot, it was us who saved you from here. And it’s because of us that you’ve been given this chance to live in this luxury…” He looks around, his carefully constructed composer cracking just as easily as Charlie’s.

  Another significant trait they share.

  The tiny hairs on my arm and neck begin to stand on end just as the two demons standing guard near Charlie’s throne curl their lips and growl. In a blink, we each have a flux in hand, just waiting for the chance to throw, but Charlie holds his hand up, silencing them, eyes still locked on Jaxen’s.

  “I see you’re not going to make this easy on me,” he says, nostrils flaring. “That’s your mother coming out in you.”

  Jaxen takes a step for him, unwavering.

  Charlie flashes a grin that reminds me so much of Gavin. “And that is me coming out of you. The fearlessness. The overbearing confidence.” He turns and tells the two demons to leave the room. Once they’re gone, he looks to Cassie, Jezi, and me. “Please, take a seat. Though we’re getting off on the wrong foot, I do want to have a cordial meeting.” He flicks a glance to his watch. “And we are running out of time.”

  Cassie and Jezi sit. I stay beside Jaxen, unmoving.

  “What do you want?” Gavin asks, moving to stand behind the couch with a hand on Cassie’s shoulder.

  Charlie lets out a large sigh and heads to the couch on the other side of the room. He sits. Crosses his legs and leans back. “I already told you. I want to talk to you. Catch up on all that I missed. Maybe even try to see if I can get a meeting set up with Angie.”

  “Did Mom visit you while you were in the correctional facility?” Gavin poses.

  The humor in Charlie’s eyes disappear.

  “Didn’t think so. She doesn’t want anything to do with you,” Gavin finishes without an ounce of remorse. “And neither do we, so if you don’t have any information that will help us track Mourdyn down, then I think we’ll be on our way. We have a Divine to catch.”

  He turns, and so does Jaxen, pulling away from any chance of a reconciliation, when Cassie says, “Gav,” reaching over the couch for his hand. His eyes melt when they land on her. “Please. For me. Sit. Give him a chance.” She looks to Jaxen. “You too. Please. If dying taught me anything, it’s that you shouldn’t waste a single second on grudges that will hold no weight on the other side.”

  It takes them both a second, but then their shoulders loosen and their knees buckle and they find themselves sitting on a couch beside Charlie like two pillars just waiting to be tipped over. I take the seat Jezi scoots over to give me while Weldon sits in an armchair beside me.

  “Thank you,” Charlie says to everyone, the calmed tone of his voice pulling the plug on the lingering tension. He waits, searching their faces, his apology melting the edges of darkness around his eyes. “I know I am to blame for the strain in our relationship, but I’d like to make it clear that I do want one with both of you. And I see that trying to explain myself will only be registered as an excuse, so how about we just let the past be the past and talk man to man?”

  There’s a stretch of silence as his eyes shift between them. I guess their silence is enough of an answer.

  “You’re here because Maddock wants information and I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather have down here, scavenging through this place I will continue to call home. I know we can’t ever go back. I knew it when I took the deal to save your mother. But it is my hope that somewhere down the road, we can at least come to an understanding because, at the end of the day, you’re still my sons, and, despite what I have become, I still love you. Nothing can change that.”

  Jaxen looks down to his boots, a heavy crease of pain stretched across his forehead as Gavin’s features begin to thaw, his eyes swirling with conflicting emotions.

  “How goes being the king ding?” Weldon asks, his tone light and airy, as if nothing has happened so far.

  Charlie looks over to his friend. Smiles a small thank you. I notice he has a dimple in his left cheek, and it softens his smile, just like Jaxen’s. “It’s been eye-opening. Cleaning ship has taken over most of my days. The amount of in-house issues down here is astounding. Bael wasn’t even running things the way I thought he was.”

  “What do you mean?” Gavin asks, leaning forward.

  Charlie looks over to him. “Imagine a company and all the inner workings. Now, imagine the president of that company neglecting his duties. Not watching the CFO and CEO. Letting them do as they please, which trickles down through the rankings until no one is doing the job they’re meant to do. Bael was distracted by lust and greed. When Clara was here, she implemented the need for witches by ordering them to gather souls for Bael, eliminating the need for demons—beings she couldn’t control even if she wanted to.”

  He looks to Weldon, an understanding exchanged between the two of them. “Even the dark side of things needs structure if the order between good and evil is to remain even. Demons are nothing but a menace if they don’t have order and purpose.”

  “Here, here,” Weldon says with a toasting nod. “Told you your dad was good for the job,” he tosses in Gavin and Jaxen’s direction with a smug grin.

  “So how have you fixed it?” Jaxen asks, his words reserved.

  Charlie is all too happy to explain. “In the weeks that I’ve been down here, I’ve reestablished the rules the Underground is meant to follow. Locked away or ordered an execution for those demons who don’t want to comply. Souls are meant to be taken from those who aren’t deserving of them. They’re not meant as a free-for-all, which is exactly what Clara tried to induce.”

  He leans forward as if he’s about to let us in on a secret and says, “Who are we if we do not have souls to feast upon because we have fed on them all?”

  It’s chilling how this conversation is happening with their father. The same man who raised them. Who inspired them to be the best hunters they could be. But then I think about Weldon and how easily Jaxen fell into a friendship with him. If he could love someone like Weldon, then there’s hope for his father.

  “I asked specifically for you both.” He pauses and looks to the rest of us. “And all of you, of course,” he adds with a short smile, “because there were a few things I noticed while overhauling the Underground. Things I feel you deserve to see first, before Maddock has a chance to do with the information as he pleases.”

  Weldon snickers. “You know my brother too well.”

  Charlie leans in, eyes flashing. “I know he is as self-serving as Clara was. It only took one conversation to find pieces of her in him.”

  “What did you find?” Gavin asks, cutting right to the chase. There’s an undercurrent of feeling running under his words. A stream of annoyance, and maybe a little bit of fear… fear that he might fall victim to Charlie’s charm if he sits here long enough.

  Charlie looks to him, and then clicks his eyes away, turning in his chair to reach behind it. When he turns back around, he has a box filled with rolled-up papers, sort of like blueprints, on his lap. “My men have been going through the things left behind in the wake of Mourdyn and his Darkyn’s immediate departure once they realized I had enough demons to overpower them even on their best day. It was chaotic down he
re, to say the least. Chaotic enough for them to grab and go, only taking the essentials with them for fear of losing anymore witches than they already had.”

  He sets the box on the coffee table and pushes it toward us like an offering.

  “What they have found of value is in this box. I have personally looked over every inch of what they’ve brought me—records kept from Clara’s time here, research and documented plans kept within the Darkyn leaders, and, of course, what little was left behind from Mourdyn’s short time here.”

  He leans back in his seat, blowing air from his cheeks, as Gavin and Jaxen take pieces from the box, unrolling papers and passing folders to each of us to rummage through. Jezi reads off a medical file kept on Mourdyn, listing ailments such as the rapid aging of his body due to the mortal wound caused by the Dagger of Retribution that can only be temporarily remedied by the absorption of another’s magic.

  “He’s still weak. That’s a good sign,” Jezi says, trying to sound hopeful.

  “A weakened man becomes a desperate man,” Weldon says dolefully.

  Jaxen passes me one of the blueprints. I quickly unroll the rubber band from it and flatten it as best I can against the little bit of coffee table left exposed. A numbness starts at my fingertips as my eyes prey over it, and then spreads through my limbs so fast and so thick I think I may never feel warm again.

  I scramble for the box, dragging it toward me, desperately reaching for the other blueprints as panic floods my voice box, muting me. As my heart beats so fast I think it might explode.

  “What is it?” Jaxen asks, looking to me and then to Charlie.

  I feel the weight of everyone looking at me, studying me as if my movements alone will tell them what I’ve discovered, but I can’t form the words.

  “The layout to Ethryeal City,” Charlie explains in an almost dazed tone. As if he’s still trying to wrap his mind around it all as well.