by Jayde Brooks
“A peculiar thing, small, brown and young. I had seen her in my dreams,” she said, tearfully. “I did not know who she was or why I dreamed her, until Khale told me.”
“Khale told you that this peculiar stole from you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she also tell you that this peculiar was created by her?”
Mkombozi stepped back and stared quizzically at him. “What do you mean?”
“When you died, Mkombozi, Khale captured your essence and put it in this human. So I’ll ask again, how is that you are here?”
“Is that what your impostor has told you, Guardian?” she asked defensively. “She has told you this lie?”
He shook his head. “Khale told me this.”
Of course she did not trust her mother. And after considering his words, she was not surprised to hear that her mother had omitted portions of the truth. Still, it pained her to realize that even in death, Khale was not above betraying or lying to her own daughter.
“It makes no difference,” she finally said.
“It makes all the difference,” he said angrily. “What are you?”
His tone and his question caught her off guard. “I am Mkombozi,” she shot back, insulted.
“You have no aura. You may look like Mkombozi, but something is wrong.”
“What is wrong is that you would question me about who I am and believe the lies of Khale and your impostor. What is wrong is that you would choose her over me when I am the one you swore your oath to. Or did it mean nothing?”
“My oath means everything. I did not give it lightly and it still stands that it belongs to my Beloved, regardless of what form she takes.”
“So you believe that she is me?” she asked, stunned that he could stand here, seeing her, touching her, and still not believe that she was his.
“You believe that I should leave her and come to you?”
“I believe that you should honor your oath and the love you declared to me,” she said stubbornly.
He stood there, studying her as if she were some sort of specimen growing up from the ground. His expression angered her, and it hurt her more deeply than she ever thought possible that he was capable of hurting her. But she had to finish this. He had been drowned in lies for so long that the only way for him to believe her now would be to show him the truth.
“Take me to her, Tukufu. Take me to her and let me show you the truth, since seeing me does not provide the evidence you need. Take me your impostor.”
“Nothing good can come from the two of you together.”
“Truth is good,” she retorted. “And once you see it with your own eyes then will you hate yourself for what you are doing to me?”
“Perhaps,” he muttered, nodding.
Tukufu glanced dismissively at the Vampyre leaning patiently against the vehicle, his back turned to the both of them.
“She has the Omen,” he admitted. “They are a part of her as they were of you.”
“I know. From what I have seen of these humans, it is unusual that she was able to make and survive the bonds, unless she is one of their warriors,” she probed.
“She is—unique.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” she reluctantly admitted. “Still, they do not belong to her. And neither do you.”
“I need time,” he said. “There is much to sort out, Mkombozi.”
“I do not need time, Guardian,” she said resentfully. “And if you do not take me to her, then I will find her on my own.”
His beautiful wings suddenly appeared. “I will find you first, Mkombozi,” he said before taking flight. “Trust that.”
She watched him disappear into the sky with tears in her eyes and anger in her heart. Never would she have ever imagined that he would have so little regard for her. Khale and her impostor had ingrained their lie so deep within him that it blinded him to her.
“Maybe we should go back to the beach house,” the Vampyre said from behind her. “And figure out what to do next.”
“He will hate himself for how he’s hurt me when this is all over,” she said, brokenhearted and watching him fade out of sight.
“I do not doubt it. I will take you back . . .”
She turned to him. “North, Van Dureel,” she snapped. “That is what we will go next. We will find the impostor.”
“The Guardian headed west, Mkombozi. We could be heading in the wrong direction if we continue north.”
“The Guardian wants us to change direction,” she explained. “He came from that direction,” she pointed. “That is where we will find her.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jarrod Runyon led a convoy of about a hundred fighters to a small town in northern Pennsylvania called Ararat, chasing a lead that gangs, including some vamp members, were planning an attack. These gangs had been traipsing up and down the east coast, hitting up townships, kidnapping women and children and brutally killing the men, selling or trading off the others to the highest bidders in and outside of sanctuaries.
Two days had passed since he and Molly had last seen Eden. Molly had been unusually sullen and quiet since then, avoiding any mention of her friend or of the changes in her that she’d witnessed. Runyon surmised that the things Molly had seen had proven to be the wakeup call she probably needed if she was ever going to face the reality of what was happening.
“Mac,” Molly said into the two-way radio, “take your squad east on this upcoming road, and follow it to Route Seventeen, turn left onto the main road and follow that into town. It’ll take you right down the gut.”
“I love it when you talk like that,” Runyon said, smirking.
Molly shook her pretty head and almost smiled. She stared out of the passenger window. “Do you think she really would’ve killed us?” she asked solemnly.
He sighed. “It wasn’t her, Red. It was those Omen. You know that.”
“Do you think she’d have let them kill us?”
“Do you think she can hold them off forever?”
Molly looked at him. “I used to.”
Eden had been Superwoman to Molly ever since the two had first met. Now, Molly was being forced to reconcile herself to the truth and it was tearing her up inside.
“Our days really are numbered,” she muttered sadly. “And my best friend is at the heart of it.”
“She’s done good to last this long, Red. Mkombozi—a warrior, an Ancient—couldn’t last a day with those things in her.”
Molly rode quietly beside him before speaking up again.
“Shit!” Jarrod said, skidding his Hummer to a stop and jumping out of the driver’s side door, changing into Were form in the process. “Watch it, Red!” he shouted to her, trusting that Molly was locked, loaded, and ready to rock. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his beautiful mate with her pistols drawn, firing like she was an outlaw in a Western.
Jarrod’s growl was the signal to his brothers to transform as well. Human fighters scattered like ants, taking on other humans from the gangs. As Jarrod tore through bodies, he kept his eyes open for vamps, who’d be fucking idiots to join a fight where his kind were soldiers. There had to have been hundreds of these human bastards, firing guns, all of them looking like Mad Max rejects and taking crazy to a whole new level.
Jarrod caught up with a half dozen of those sonsofbitches, dragging and carrying screaming females over to pick up trucks outfitted with makeshift cages, trying to shove one of them inside. Bless her heart, she screamed, kicked, and fought long enough to give Jarrod time to start slicing and dicing and shredding those fools like confetti. Of course she was terrified at the sight of the Were, but he made it clear that he was on her side, and turned to find another fight.
Molly fired her pistols with the accuracy of a world-class marksman. She had no problem putting a bullet between a motherfucker’s eyes. The problem with guns was that they ran out of ammo, though, and at some point a girl had to put away her favorite toys and rely on her backup. Cutting was personal. I
t required you to have to get up close to someone. Molly hated the intimacy of a blade. Besides that, it could get messy. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do, and Molly was as badass with a knife as she was with a gun.
The trick was not to get shot by somebody else. Dodging bullets was an art form. Stay low, move in quick, short bursts, and pray—a lot. She needed to get to a shed on the other side of the road. She’d spotted a truck pulling up behind it, and she had a hunch that it was there to pick something up, and that that something was inside that shed. If vamps were here, she couldn’t tell. These gang dudes were all painted up and outfitted with crazy gear, feathers, chains, and spikes. They looked like idiots, high on testosterone and shrooms. But whatever. They were dangerous and they were human-stealers and they deserved to die.
She ducked down low behind a water well, less than twenty feet away from the shed’s front door. She pulled out her two-way radio and whispered. “They’ve got civilians trapped in that shed across the road. I’m heading in.”
She peered around the curve of the well. From that vantage point, she could only see the front end of the truck, with the driver sitting behind the wheel, staring into his side-view mirror. She kept low to the ground and duckwalked over to the front door, slowly pulling down the handle and cracking open the door. Molly peeked inside, but it was completely dark and she couldn’t see or hear a damn thing.
Warning crept up her spine. This was a bad scene, too much for her to handle on her own. With that thought at the front of her mind, she started to back away and wait for reinforcements. As she did, red dots suddenly illuminated the dark space, dozens of them, all fixed on her.
Her heart pounded like a drum. “Vamps,” she muttered, turning to run. “Jarrod!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Vamps!”
They were fast. She half expected them to turn into bats, but they didn’t. They chased her down and were on her in a matter of seconds. Molly was abruptly pinned to the ground, face down, her head turned to one side and pushed down into the dirt. One of them drove a bony knee hard into her back between her shoulder blades, grabbed a handful of her hair, and lowered its face to hers.
“Prrrrretty,” it whispered, its breath oily and foul.
It was thin, but strong. Too strong. Molly struggled to get free, but it was useless. Then, just like that, she was snatched off the ground and pulled up by her hair until she could barely touch the ground with her toes.
She screamed and clawed at the hand holding her up. That thing staring back at her was no handsome, pale, sparkling, good-looking high school boy. It was ugly, with gray, translucent skin, black stringy hair, dark lips, red eyes, and thick, purplish veins running just underneath its tissue-thin skin.
“Commme,” he whispered, dragging her toward the truck parked behind the shed.
“Jarrod!” she screamed over and over again.
Let him hear her. Please let him hear her. This was not happening. Molly was not going to end up as some senator’s sex slave. Not happening.
“Jarrod!”
“Husssssshhhhh!” the ugly one said, turning to her.
Molly dug her nails into his hand. He grabbed one of her hands and sunk teeth into it.
“Aaaaaaagh!” she screamed as a burning sensation traveled through her hand to her fingertips, and then up her arm.
Just like that, the other vamps scattered, disappearing like gnats flying through the air. One minute they were all around her, and the next they were gone. The one holding her never even saw him coming. And he never had a chance to let go of Molly’s hair. Jarrod left behind the dirty creature’s hand in her hair, but took the rest of him and disappeared into the woods. Molly literally had to pry his fingers open to get his hand off of her.
Weres hunting vamps. It was absurd and it was obscene. It was like sending a lion to hunt puppies. On Theia this never would’ve happened, but this wasn’t Theia, and these bastards were bold. But they were no match for Runyon and his brethren. A dozen vamps got stomped in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t killing vamps that worried Jarrod. It was the number of vamps that bothered him. This time there were only a dozen. But he couldn’t help but wonder how many more of them were out there, how many more of them there were than Weres.
“Are you all right, Red?” he asked, finally getting back to Molly, who’d planted her blade in the temple of the driver of that truck parked behind the shed.
“I’m good,” she said, as if she was attacked by vamps every day. “That bastard bit me, though,” she said, shaking her hand. “You don’t think I’ll turn into one of those things. Do you?” she joked.
He wasn’t laughing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Thanks for the soda,” Eden said. She’d drunk half of it before coming up for air. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’ve never seen anyone gulp down a whole soda in thirty seconds before.”
“A shake would’ve been nice,” she said sarcastically.
“A shake would’ve melted.”
Prophet stared at her like he was looking at someone else, a stranger.
“You’re giving me a funny look,” Eden said with a smirk, but there was something about the look in his eyes that unsettled her.
What’s he hiding?
She pretended not to hear the Omen voices in her head.
“How funny?” he teased.
Eden tried to shake this feeling of paranoia. It was hers. It was theirs.
“Like you’re seeing me for the first time. Except the actual first time you saw me, you tried to kill me,” she said grinning.
He almost smiled. “It was an accident.”
“You hand slipped and fell on my neck, wrapped around it and squeezed. Is that it?”
Before Eden had bonded with any Omen, met her hunk of a soulmate, killed a Demon and some Brood, and saved the world, she was a bartender. One night after closing, she went outside to throw the last of the trash in the dumpster and Bam! Out of nowhere, the love of all her lives appeared in a rage, determined to kill what he called an “abomination.” Needless to say, her feelings were beyond hurt. But he’d redeemed himself.
“I thought I said sorry,” he said, sarcastically.
Secrets? Interesting.
She wished they’d shut up. Eden didn’t need this now. She didn’t need them planting venomous seeds of ridiculous ideas in her head. Prophet kept no secrets from her. But the Omen wanted to make her doubt him, to doubt the two of them together.
Eden continued forcing the paranoia aside. “Orange soda,” she said, turning up the bottle and finishing what was left. “Where’d you manage to find orange soda?”
“DC. Alexandria is on the mend. People are moving back in droves because they’re starting to feel safe again now that the Brood are gone.”
Eden shrugged. “But vamps are coming up.”
“Humans, at least those who have been hiding behind sanctuary barriers and soldiers, don’t know that. Vamps aren’t as clumsy or cumbersome or blatantly cannibalistic as Brood. That kind of thing tends to stand out.”
He is being clever with his humor.
Pretending everything is fine.
This pretty Guardian is lying to you, young one.
Sticks and stones. The Omen talked a lot. Ignoring them was key because giving credence to anything they said meant cracking a window open just wide enough for them to slip through. How much longer could she keep that window closed, though? Time was against her and Eden was becoming more like a flickering light in a dark room. The last time they’d taken control of her she’d scraped up strength she didn’t even know she had to stop them from killing him. The good thing in all of this, if there was a good thing, is that Eden was giving as good as she got against the Omen. Fighting them took a lot out of her, but it took a lot out of them too. And just like her, they were sitting and waiting and quietly licking their wounds, until the next opportunity came.
“We have to be at the Manhattan City burbs tomorrow at noon
,” she told him while he cut up fish at the kitchen sink. “Intel has come back with news of an attack on humans in West Virginia. They think vamps will be there.”
“We’ll be early.”
How was it that they were sharing the same space and breathing the same air when one was supposed to have been reincarnated from the other? Mkombozi was not supposed to be here but she was. And everything about her was the same—her beauty, her scent, the sound of her voice. A part of him wanted to believe that it was truly her who had come back to him. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
“Prophet? What’s going on?” Eden asked, walking toward him.
He loved her. He would die for her and kill for her. But what if she wasn’t—
Eden reached up and pressed her hand to the side of his face. “I’m all right, Beloved.” She smiled up at him, her breath smelling like oranges from the soda she’d just finished. “My eyes are brown,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I can see the brown all over them.”
He laughed, hoping that she would be convinced that it was authentic. “I see it too, sweetheart.” He leaned in for a kiss.
All evening his thoughts were reeling over what it all meant or could’ve meant. Mkombozi was here in this world, physically. She had no aura. She had no essence because it was reborn inside Eden. Right? But did the Ancient know that? Did she know that she wasn’t complete? Unless . . . maybe she was. Maybe she was telling the truth, that Khale had somehow fooled him into believing that Eden was Mkombozi reincarnated.
Keep it together, man, he said to himself.
He watched Eden pull vegetables from a bowl, get a knife from the utensil drawer, and start to cut up carrots.
“Molly’s still trying to get Jarrod to bite her,” she said, chatting like there was nothing odd about her best friend wanting her boyfriend to take a chunk out of her.
Twenty-four hours ago Eden, or the Omen in her, had tried to split his head open. Mkombozi hadn’t even been a thought, and now all of sudden his role in all of this had gotten a whole lot more complicated. Mkombozi wanted the Omen back, but the Omen had taken her almost instantly, and she’d been responsible for the destruction of an entire world before Khale cast the spell that ended Mkombozi’s life. Could she take them from Eden? And if she could, then what?