by Jayde Brooks
Molly laughed. “Tsk. Tsk.”
“Not to mention that it made more sense to straight-arm you then let myself risk loving you,” he said solemnly. “I felt more for you than I let on, sweetheart. But every time we went into battle together, in the back of my mind, I wondered if you’d survive.”
Molly smiled. “But I kicked ass every time,” she said proudly.
“You’re still kicking ass, lovely,” he kissed her. “And besides, when the world does end, I’d feel a whole lot better about it if you were in my arms when that happens.”
Jarrod said when, not if. She could give up like everyone else and wait for Eden to lose it. But something deep inside her wouldn’t let her give up, wouldn’t let her lose faith in Eden. They were practically the same age. And Eden had managed to do what an Ancient warrior woman hadn’t been able to do. She’d kicked that demon’s ass, and she was still alive when no one thought she should be.
“It amazes me how all you Ancients don’t believe that Eden can somehow beat this,” she said. “After everything she’s done. I find it impossible to believe anything else.”
He pecked her on the lips. “Then you keep believing, Red. Don’t let us tainted old Ancients sway you from your faith in your friend. In the meantime, baby, we’ll just keep fighting if that’s what you want to do.”
“I still want you to bite me. If she does manage to live through this, and us with her, then I want forever with you.”
“If I believed that my bite would give me that with you, I’d take a chunk out of that sweet little plump ass of yours.”
“But?”
“But I won’t take the chance of being wrong.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ENIG practically carried TOKE through the small apartment into the bedroom. “G-Guardian,” TOKE struggled to say, gasping for breath and grunting in pain.
Spying was what Phantoms did best, but the task had likely cost this one his life. Admirably, he’d managed to make it back to ENIG to report what he’d seen before his life force slipped away. He had literally been shredded. His physical form was ripped apart, leaving gaping wounds in his bodily image. To others, a Phantom appeared as a dense, ghostly appearance. To ENIG, TOKE looked like a large puzzle with huge pieces missing, and he had turned a moss shade of green. “You did well to return here at all,” ENIG said, sitting on the bed next to TOKE, doing what he could to help make him as comfortable as possible in these last moments.
TOKE gasped, and trembled uncontrollably. “H-h-had to,” he struggled to say.
ENIG strained to hear him.
“Im-por-tant.”
“Tell me,” ENIG coaxed him anxiously.
TOKE grimaced. “Aaagh!”
“TOKE! Please, my friend.”
TOKE’s grotesque disfiguration was difficult to look at, but ENIG couldn’t afford to turn away from him now.
“I—saw the Omen,” he said, gasping. “W-while sh-she slept. I—saw . . .”
TOKE cried out again in agony, fading in and out of this dimension.
“What? What did you see?”
TOKE didn’t have the strength or energy to elaborate, or the luxury of time. How did the Omen take her? When did they take her and how was her behavior when they did? Was she afraid? Eager? Sad or angry? So many questions that might have to go unanswered. TOKE’s life force was flowing from him like water down a drain. He wouldn’t last much longer.
“I—w-watched her,” he continued, weakly. “Sleeping. So p-pretty. Human. Vulnerable.”
TOKE stressed that last word, seemingly for ENIG’s benefit. Vulnerable. And human. And alone.
The Phantom was sending a clear message that Eden’s resolve was weakening.
“And then—then I saw—them,” he said, his eyes widening, his voice rising. TOKE’s labored breathing quickened.
“Who, TOKE? Who’d you see?”
“Omen—the Omen spirits! She slept! They watched her! Sleep! They watched—”
The panic in TOKE wreaked havoc on what was left of him. ENIG watched helpless as the wounded Phantom’s body, or what was left of it, flicker like a light bulb about to burn out.
“You saw the Omen?” ENIG asked, stunned. No one had seen the Omen. Ever. “How is that possible?” They’re part of her. Inside her, TOKE. How could you possibly see them?”
“Watch-ing her—the bed—Eden. They saw—her sleeping and then—”
ENIG tried wrapping his mind around what TOKE had told him. “Are you sure, TOKE?”
The wounded phantom nodded. “Yes ENIG. It was them—three, circling—watching h-her.”
“Outside of her?” ENIG muttered, confused. “They’re beginning to overpower her,” he concluded, more to himself than to TOKE. “They’re taking control of her. Eden is weakening and we’re running out of time.”
Another world ending. The thought made ENIG sick to his stomach. Of course he knew that this Eden wasn’t some mighty anomaly who could somehow corral the Omen and keep them at bay, but this report from the Phantom made the truth even more real and more urgent. Like so many others, ENIG had lost loved ones and most of his nation in the Fall of Theia. Fate had been on the side of the living that day when their world collided with this one and those who were left managed to escape to here, but would they be so lucky the next time? Would any of them survive at all?
TOKE’s panic wreaked havoc on what was left of him. ENIG watched helpless as the wounded Phantom’s body began to flicker.
TOKE drifted in and out of lucidity. “Watch-ing her—the bed—Eden. They saw—her sleeping and then—”
Even disfigured and distorted, TOKE’s expression registered terror.
“Me! They s-saw—me! Run!” he yelled, disoriented. “Run!” TOKE was losing his battle for his life. “Guardian! Sh-sh-shit! Guar-dian!”
There was no need for TOKE to finish. He died before he could, but ENIG understood what he was saying. Prophet had killed him.
ENIG was oblivious to time slowly ticking away as he stared at the space where TOKE had died. It was just a bed, with no evidence whatsoever that his friend had passed away here. Not even the sheets had been rumpled. TOKE had sacrificed his life to bring this message. ENIG owed it to him to share it with the others.
“You Ancients have grown weak and soft,” Isis said to the group around her. Only a few dozen had answered ENIG’s call, including Torok and Ahmand, who seemed perfectly satisfied with biding their time until Eden and her Omen decided to blow up the fucking world.
“Are we weak or just realistic, Isis?” Torok, the Berserker, said in challenge. “We’re no match for her, and you know it.”
“We were no match for Mkombozi, Torok,” she countered. “Eden’s not her.”
“No. She’s even stronger,” Ahmand shot back. “Mkombozi couldn’t last two seconds with those things inside her. Eden’s lived with them for months. Of the two, I’d guess that she was more powerful.”
“She’s a freak,” Isis argued. “A test tube baby manufactured by Khale to finish the job her daughter could not. The fact that she still lives with the Omen is merely a testament to the abomination that she truly is.”
“Look, I get it. She stole your boyfriend,” Ahmand quipped. “She’s likely going to end up being the destruction of us all. So you want to get in one last good lick before it all comes to an explosive and bloody end.”
“Is your brain as small as your dick or are you just trying to be funny?” Isis shot back. “Do you even have a dick?”
Ahmand smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
“Unraveling,” ENIG said, out of nowhere. “Obviously it’s beginning to happen, and the Redeemer is losing her control of the Omen.” Sadness from the loss of his friend TOKE filled his eyes. “We can sit around and wait for them to take her, or we can kill her.”
“How?” one of the Weres asked. “Even if we could get past the Guardian, Eden’s a fucking weapon in her own right.”
; “She’s human,” Isis reminded them.
“So?” Torok shrugged. “She doesn’t fight like a human. She doesn’t move like one.”
“But she is one,” Isis continued. “She sleeps like one. Eats like one.”
“Kill her in her sleep? Poison her? Is that what you’re suggesting?” Ahmand asked. “Who’s going to be dumb enough to try and get that close? Who can get past the Guardian?”
“TOKE did,” ENIG reminded them.
“He’s dead now, though,” Torok said.
“But the Guardian isn’t with her all the time,” ENIG replied. “The opportunity is there.”
“We just have to take advantage of it again,” Isis said. “Catch her without her Guardian and with her guard down. It’s not impossible.”
“And the Omen?” Torok asked. “What’s to keep them from lashing out to protect her?”
“The Omen are spirits, Torok,” ENIG said. “They have no physical abilities except for what they can do through her. They influence her essence, her mind, and her body. But without her, they’re nothing.”
The Phantom spoke with certainty, and Isis could only hope that he was right. Eden was only a superior to the Ancients because of the Omen. Without them, she was nothing but a human girl; frail, easily broken, and expendable.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I’ve seen a lot of death, but nothing like what I saw in that village, Eden.”
Eden hovered over a cup of tea in the kitchen of Molly and Jarrod’s ranch house, listening to Molly talk about the massacre. Molly didn’t cry, but Eden wasn’t surprised. Crying over dead bodies didn’t solve the problem that they were still dead after you dried your eyes. Her sadness was undeniable, though. “It was senseless,” Molly continued, furrowing her brow. “Vicious.” She lowered her head and toyed with the string on her tea bag. “It almost looked as if the killers were playing an arcade game to see who could score the most points.”
“Jarrod thinks it was vamps?” Eden asked, worried.
Molly nodded. “Yeah.” She paused for a moment. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves another monster war,” she said, solemnly. “Remember how it used to be in the movies?” she looked up at Eden and half-smiled. “You kill the bad guy at the end of the movie, and that was it,” she shrugged. “It was over, the credits rolled, and you walked away feeling relieved because the good guys had won.”
“Those were the good old days,” Eden dismally concluded.
“Why can’t it just be over? Why can’t everybody just get back to business as usual, go back to their homes and jobs, and pick up where we left off before anybody ever heard of Ancients?” Molly looked at Eden. “Why can’t we all just snap out of it?”
“Because this isn’t a fairy tale,” Eden said abruptly. “Because evil is often stronger than good. People are weak. And the bogeyman is real.”
Molly should’ve known better than to say stupid shit to Eden. She needed to save the wishful thinking for the pillows in her bedroom. If she wanted empathy, sympathy, or that wistful friend whose shoulder she could cry on, then Eden wasn’t the one.
“I’ve got the soul of a Demon nipping at my heels, Molly,” Eden said unemotionally. “If I let it have me, if I let the Omen have me, then all of you are dead, and everything we fight for won’t mean a damn thing.” Molly was a good fighter, but in so many ways she was still just a stupid girl.
“Your eyes are green,” Molly murmured, staring tearfully at Eden.
Eden blinked. She couldn’t feel the Omen, but they were awake inside her. Lurking. Hiding in the dark corners of her thoughts. The disdain they felt for this dumb girl with the fiery red hair came through Eden. Molly needed to be careful.
“I am your biggest fan, Eden,” she said somberly. “I have more faith in you than I have in anyone else, including handsome Were alphas and winged hotties with silver eyes.”
Eden willed the Omen back away from her surface. They’d have to kill her before she let them get to Molly.
Soon, she heard a fading whisper echoing through her mind.
Molly smiled and sighed, relieved. “Hey, homegirl with the big, brown eyes.”
“How come that doesn’t freak you out?” Eden asked.
“Eyes, shmize,” Molly said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s still you. I don’t care if they turned purple. It’d still be you.”
Eden shook her head. Leave it to Molly to choose to be stupid on purpose.
“You’re my best friend. And even though I can’t see it, and you can’t see it, I know how hard you’re fighting. I know you’re still here.”
Eden wanted to tell her, “Barely.” But she thought better of it.
“Don’t say anything,” she said hastily, as if reading Eden’s mind. “Just let me have this.”
“Sure, Mol,” Eden forced a smile. “You got it, girl.”
“Vamps attacked that village,” Runyon told Prophet as the two Ancients walked slowly toward Runyon’s barn. “It’s like the Burbs were custom-made for their asses, filled with refuse and remnants of rotted corpses and garbage. It’s only logical that the Vamps would come scurrying out like fucking cockroaches. Someone left the lights off.”
“Bold vamps,” Prophet said half-heartedly. “Sounds like an oxymoron.”
“But are you really surprised?” Runyon stared back at Prophet. “We let ’em go unchecked all this time while they quietly played into human fantasies and got themselves glamorized in movies and books. I didn’t take it seriously. Did you?”
Prophet shrugged. “I could’ve cared less.”
“That was the problem. It was easy ignoring that shit, giving humans more credit than they deserved.”
“Imagine how magical it must’ve been the moment the first human realized that vampires were real?” Prophet asked. “Imagine how terrifying it must’ve been when they realized that they were nothing like anything they’d seen in the movies.”
“Consider the vamps,” Runyon continued. “All of a sudden you’re not the scourge you once were. You’re worshipped like gods, you’ve got groupies, and you’re free to feed on the living instead of the dead. What the fuck did that do to them?”
“It gave them egos,” Prophet said. “When’s the last time you saw a vamp alpha up close and personal?”
Runyon shrugged. “I can’t remember. Every now and then I might come across one of the drones, but never an alpha. Think that’s what this Van Dureel character is?”
“Could be.”
Runyon shook his head. “I guess. Meanwhile, I’ve got a woman who still believes she can save everybody and won’t stop trying until she takes her last breath. If it was up to me, I’d shackle Molly’s little ass to me and we’d live out whatever time we had left right here on this ranch.”
“Not a bad plan,” Prophet said absently.
“So, is it my imagination or are you being a little less asshole-ish than usual today?” the Were finally asked.
The two of them had never been what you’d call friends, but they had human mates in common, Eden and Molly, who happened to be best friends. Human warrior females who hadn’t been born fighters but turned into warriors.
Prophet turned to him with a smirk. “I am the same asshole today as I am every day, Were.”
“How’s Eden?” Runyon asked, concerned.
“She’s Eden,” Prophet reluctantly replied.
“Is she all right?”
“Define ‘all right.’” Prophet smirked.
“She seems like she’s coping, I guess. Is that what you call it? Coping with those things in her?”
“Some days are better than others.”
“Well,” Runyon sighed, “one day at a time, I guess.”
“More like one minute at a time. A few days ago, the Omen took her,” he finally confessed.
“What do you mean they took her?”
“She was standing in front of me, then all of a sudden I found myself looking at an empty shell of her. Just her body. Physically, she was there, but . .
.”
Since then, Eden pretended to be fine and Prophet pretended to have dismissed the whole ordeal, but both of them were quietly processing what had happened.
“So they took her . . . essence?” Runyon asked curiously.
Prophet nodded his head slightly. “Basically. Snatched her right out of herself and took her to some spirit world where they rule. Worked her over pretty good,” he said. “I couldn’t get to her. Tried, but all I could do was stand there and watch the spiritual havoc they wreaked on her manifest into physical scars on her body.”
Runyon looked like Prophet had just told him that the sky was falling and that he needed to duck.
“She fought her way back, or they let her go?”
“She fought,” Prophet said with certainty. “She hasn’t been the same since, though. On top of that, I found a Phantom in my house the next day.” He looked at Runyon. “I suspect that he’d been watching her. Either he heard me come into the house or something scared the shit out of him, though, because he cut out of there like a bat out of hell.”
Ancients didn’t trust Eden’s ability to resist the Omen. So it wasn’t surprising to Prophet that they’d be trying to keep an eye on her. Not that watching her would stop the inevitable from happening. The thought of them watching her while she was alone was the problem. Hell, if they needed a play-by-play, he could give them that. But now, if nothing else, the Ancients knew that Prophet had left her alone, and that the Phantom had been watching her while she slept certainly raised a red flag.
“I have no idea how long he’d been there, but it was long enough to know that I hadn’t been there to protect her for more than a few minutes. I’m afraid of what kind of message that could send to the others.”
“Hey guys,” Molly chirped, coming into the barn followed by Eden. “So.” She sidled up to Runyon and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Any idea how to kill a bunch of savage vampires?”
Prophet stared wearily at Eden, his silver eyes swirling with intensity as he looked into hers. “Got a can of Raid?” Runyon asked, amused by his own joke. He was the only one who’d found it funny.