“Yeah, and?” She rolls her hand forward, encouraging what promises to be more word vomit from me. “What does that have to do with anything?” Annoyance creeps into her tone.
“I don’t know. I’m just asking. You know, making conversation.” I try to sound casual and offhand. All I end up sounding like is a complete fool.
“Whatever,” she huffs and rolls her eyes as her search takes her a few steps away from me.
Following her, I say, “Have you ever had a family, like a husband and kids? You’ve been around for hundreds of years, right?”
Scarlett freezes and whirls on me. She glares at me. “Daniel, I haven’t had either.” Her tone is pure steel.
Backpedaling, I try to rationalize my side of the argument. “Well I just thought it would make sense with Luke. He’s like you, I mean like us. He doesn’t age either. The two of you wouldn’t look out of place. If you married a regular guy, he would be an old man and you would still be you,” I ramble on and gesture to her. The implication is that she’d remain beautiful. “Don’t get me wrong, you staying you isn’t a bad thing. It’s a really good thing.” I continue to slobber, despite every instinct in my body that screams for me to shut up. Embarrassment blazes a trail of heat from my collar to my cheeks.
Seeing my reaction, she quirks a brow and asks, “Are you ok?” She advances a step and places a hand on my shoulder. She gives it a gentle squeeze.
Her touch sends tiny volts of energy shooting up my arm. The air between us quickens. “Nothing. I’m fine.” My voice betrays me and cracks. I clear my throat and feel a bead of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades.
“Oh, because it sounded like you paid me a compliment.” Her voice lacks the singsong tone of flirtation. The absence stings a bit.
“I was. Even though you treat me like garbage all the time.” I add the second sentence for good measure to remind her that she’s been less than kind to me recently. She immediately snatches her hand away and I notice that a faint blush touches her cheeks.
“What is it? What’d I do?” I ask and feel every bit as pathetic as I sound.
“Nothing.” She dips her chin and won’t meet my eyes.
“No really, I’m sorry for whatever I did.” I reach out my hand and place it on her shoulder. She recoils slightly and a small pang stabs at my chest. “Sorry,” I say immediately.
“No, it’s not you. It’s just,” she starts and seems genuinely flustered. She peers at me through long lashes. “It’s, well, I mean, did you feel that?” she asks.
“Feel what?” I play dumb.
“You know, the sparks?” she asks and her cheeks turn bright pink. She looks up at me.
Words elude me. My eyes widen involuntarily. She felt them too. My stomach quivers as if a thousand butterflies beat their wings at once. I nod.
She closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them, she speaks. “Daniel, you realize why I’ve never been married or been in a relationship, right?”
“No, why?” I ask. A sinking feeling settles in the pit of my belly, squashing the teeming butterflies.
“Because that isn’t why we’re here. We can’t have families or spouses or concern ourselves with anything like that. That isn’t why we’re here. We have one purpose.” She holds up a slender index finger to punctuate her point. “One.” Her words are hushed and tremble with the thinnest thread of regret, her voice sweet but edged in steel. Though soft, they land with the force of a wrecking ball, the truth contained within them crystal clear. The fledgling hope I harbored seeps from me like air from a balloon, any and all relief deflating along with it.
Swallowing hard against the lump that unexpectedly gathered in my throat, I say, “So we spend the rest of our lives—possibly eternity—doing nothing but hunting and killing Servants of the Underworld?”
“Eternity . . . only if we don’t slip up.” The corners of her lips curl to a sly smile. I hardly find what she’s said amusing in the least. I’ve just been issued the sentence of solitary emotional confinement. Who wants eternity when that’s what it holds? Not me, that’s for sure.
“We aren’t allowed any enjoyment in life. Is that right?” I ask and do not bother to hide my annoyance.
Squaring her shoulders, she tips her chin defiantly. “Your enjoyment should be found in the completion of each mission.” Her tone is robotic almost, her words rehearsed. I don’t know who she’s trying to convince, me or herself. “Completed missions are a huge accomplishment and an honor.”
I look directly into her eyes and hold her gaze. “I’m sorry but I don’t share your opinion or your enthusiasm. What’s a life without family? Without love?”
Her expression, self-righteous and bordering on haughty, softens. “Listen, Daniel, all of this will make sense when you fully understand who you are. You’ll come to accept it.” Resignation tolls through her words, somber and final like a funeral bell.
Without blinking, I allow my eyes to shine with emotion as I take in the lovely planes of her features. Sadness grips my throat. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept it.” I lower my head for a moment and try to ignore the sting behind my eyelids. When I look up, tawny eyes glisten. Liquid, like heated honey, I see something swirl in them I haven’t seen before: longing. She wants what I want from this life. She wants to love and be loved. And no matter how hard she tries to convince herself that her missions fulfill that aching need for connection, they don’t. If flickers faintly, disappearing nearly as quickly as it appeared, but I catch it. I see it, and more importantly, I feel it. I open my mouth to speak, to explain how I feel to open the door for her to do the same, but Luke jogs back inside.
Unruffled and without a smooth, jet-black hair out of the band that holds it, he announces. “I got him.” He stops beside Scarlett and she avoids eye contact with him, intentionally busying herself by sheathing her sword and then brushing her long curly hair off her shoulders. She shifts and moonlight skates from her crown down her arms, highlighting the definition of her muscles, her strength. Once again, she looks like a goddess, exotic and beautiful. It isn’t until Luke clears his throat that I even remember he’s still standing with us. His gaze toggles between Scarlett and me before it rests on just me. “We need to get out of here,” he says.
Shaking my head slightly as if to literally clear it of the confusing thoughts firing, I ask, “Where are we going?”
“I know exactly where we’re heading, but I’m driving.” This time it is Luke who doesn’t offer information but leads instead. His tone is cryptic but his posture is confident. He’s being pulled just as I was pulled here, about as capable of freeing himself of it as the Earth is of breaking free of the sun’s orbit.
I don’t question him. I simply nod and say, “Ok, let’s go.”
I watch as he turns on his heels and leads the way to his car. Scarlett follows, her gait as graceful and sure as a jungle cat. And in the moments that I watch her copper coils trail being her like flames, I realize she has managed to leave an imprint on my heart. In the short time we were alone together in the empty warehouse, Scarlett warmed a part of me that, up until now, remained frozen. While it was made plain to me by her that fostering that warmth is forbidden, and while a large part of me feels disloyal to Sarah’s memory for even entertaining such a notion, I find myself drawn to her. Needing the warmth so desperately I can hardly keep my thoughts straight. I only hope to feel it again.
Chapter 11
̴ Agares ̴
The wind bays mournfully as its moves between branches of the land surrounding the old dilapidated mansion. Agares steps outside. Day has broken but the sky is overcast. Leaden clouds float like a fleet of warships, slowly advancing. Much like the clouds closing in, he too is closing in on his nemesis. The name came to him, the revelation manifesting itself in the form of an image and then two words: Daniel Callahan. He saw him, saw the boy as clearly as the overgrown landscape all around him. Tall and lean with a physique that’s fast becoming more man than child, h
is face is achingly innocent. Agares suppresses a gag as he hones in on brown eyes fanned by long lashes, eyes that cannot link with another’s and lie, so guileless, so trusting. His straight nose, full lips and square jawline lend him a Hollywood type of handsomeness, but his demeanor is so achingly wholesome, Hollywood would swallow him whole. Agares smirks at the thought, though he intends to be the one to swallow Daniel whole. And lucky for him, if he’s right, which he almost always is, Daniel lives in the town where Agares now stands.
Inhaling the damp, chilly air, Agares fills his lungs and begins making his way down the long, tree lined driveway at a leisurely pace. He continues, leaving the side street, until he reaches a main road. Closing his eyes, he concentrates, listening to the rhythm the world around him as if it is a giant pulsating heart. In the distance, he hears the faint whir of a car engine, the crunch of tires over miniscule pebbles in the pavement, and readies himself. Within a few minutes, the sound draws near and a nondescript, tan sedan comes into view. Waving a hand and arming himself with the most open expression he can muster, he steps out in front of her vehicle. Plump and with cheeks as round and full as apples, the woman behind the wheel slows to a stop. She lowers her window and Agares forces a smile. It reaches his eyes but is far from genuine.
“Hi ma’am,” he says, his tone is cloying.
“Can I help you with something?” she asks smiling. But as soon as her eyes lock with Agares’s her smile capsizes. Fear clouding her features immediately and pulse picking up tempo until it darts in the base of her throat so that the loose skin there giggles in time with it, the woman stares at him speechlessly.
“Why yes, you can help me,” Agares replies as he drills her with his eerie black gaze. “You can get out of your car and let me have it.” He smiles a sinister smile.
The woman’s lower lip trembles for a split second before Agares senses the faint twitch in her right calf. She depresses the accelerator, and in the instant that she does, Agares raises a hand and freezes her leg in place, paralyzing it with his power. “Wh-what’s happening?”
Power skates from his fingertip like a vein of ice, blasting into her. “Where do you think you’re going?” He sends a blast of stinging pain her way. Her body convulses and she cries out. “I thought I asked you nicely for your car.” His words come out as a growl, anger rolling off him in intensifying waves.
“I-I,” she starts but is immediately silenced.
Agares reaches into her car. He latches onto her neck in an ironclad grip, releasing his concentrated rage as he squeezes. Her eyes widen immediately, bulging and reddening as capillaries in her eyeballs burst. Her skin turns a shade of reddish purple as she fights the inevitable. Agares, feeling the thrill of taking a life skim the length of his spine and tingle down each limb, frees one of his hands, his eyes never leaving the woman’s face. Small sounds rattle from her. He cocks his head to one side and drags his knuckles down her cheek, a gesture as gentle as a lover’s touch. But the energy that escapes is anything but gentle, and is far from a lover’s touch. Feeling the soft flesh of her neck gradually give way to firmer cartilage, his hold tightens. He compresses her windpipe until it collapses entirely. Her head flops forward and he release her so that it lands against the steering wheel and the horn depresses, emitting a loud honking sound. He unbuckles her safety harness and pulls her lifeless body out, moving her as easily as a ragdoll, then tosses her into the woods on the side of the road. Her pudgy body resembles a beached sea beast as it lay among wildflowers and weeds. He doesn’t pay her any mind. Instead, he slides behind the wheel of her car and situates himself.
Operating on the assumption that Gideon conforms to social conventions such as formal education in his teenage form as Daniel Callahan, Agares figures he ought to begin there. With a working knowledge of the current technology, he searches the woman’s bag on the console for a phone. Once found, he tosses the bag out the window then searches for Patterson High School on her smartphone. The address pops up immediately and he punches it into the GPS navigation system on the dashboard. Within seconds, an annoying female voice echoes through the car, advising him that he needs to make a U-turn.
He’d never driven, and he quickly learns that he loathed the task. Adding the grating female voice with her turn-by-turn instructions to the mix only makes matters worse. Trying to focus only on the directions and not on the voice, he remembers how everything works. He shifts gears while stepping on the brake pedal then accelerates slowly. The car begins rolling, moving him closer to Patterson High School, closer to Daniel Callahan, closer to Gideon.
Following the path set forth by the navigation system, Agares arrives at Patterson High School within ten minutes. Pulling up to the lot in front of the brick building, he parks the car then makes his way inside. On a weekday, if Gideon is, in fact, Daniel Callahan, he should be here. He’d act as any teenage boy would. He’d attend classes and go through the motions, all the while maintaining his role as defender of mankind.
He approaches the building, opening an unlocked door and walking in without being questioned. Immediately, student’s lining the hall eye him. As if instinct warns them and makes the hair at the nape of their neck stand on end and quiver, they freeze, prey to a predator. He half expects all of them to bolt like startled deer at any second. They don’t run, though. Rather they look away in fear when he draws near, avoiding any and all eye contact. Agares chuckles to himself. They are weak adolescents well on their way to being cowardly adults. Sheep, all of them, now and forever more. And in the new world order he sets forth, room for sheep doesn’t exist. They will all be eradicated.
Bypassing rows of lockers and cowering teens, Agares locates the main office and strolls inside. The room is carpeted and smells of coffee and desperation, of adults with dead-end jobs who are addicted to legal, addictive stimulants to keep them functioning and help them resist hurling themselves from a third-story window as they should to put an end to their sad, miserable lives.
Behind a desk and wedged between a copy machine and staff mailboxes, a woman sits. She has a phone cradled between her ear and shoulder, typing with a frazzled expression on her face. He supposes she could be lovely, if despair didn’t ooze from her pores in a slick slide. She doesn’t look up at Agares, likely didn’t even hear him enter. He approaches her desk and clears his throat. She startles at the loud sound and nearly drops the phone. “I have someone here,” she says and hangs up on whomever she’d been speaking to. Locking eyes with him, her head rears slightly, fear registering in her dilated pupils. “C-can I help you,” she stammers.
“Yes.” Agares attempts to smile pleasantly, though he knows he looks sinister regardless. “I am Daniel Callahan’s uncle.”
“Daniel Callahan’s uncle?” she repeats what he’s said. He worries that if she repeats everything he’s saying this may take far longer than it needs to and he may end up beating her to death with the telephone receiver before extracting the information he needs. Not wanting to do that, he inhales deeply and silently counts to ten.
“Yes, I am his uncle and I need to pick him up early.” Agares allows a small frown to crease his face. “We’ve had a Callahan family emergency and I’m here to get him.”
Suspicion radiates from her in waves. “A family emergency?” One brow tics, a twitch so subtle it would be imperceptible to the human eye. Luckily Agares isn’t human. “Daniel Callahan.” She whispers the name to herself as she pecks at her keyboard. He can fairly see the wheels in her mind turning, a small line pleating her brows. “Huh,” she says and her brows dip. “That’s interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Agares asks as his patience wears thin.
“Well,” she hesitates. “No one has seen him in over a year. Her gaze flickers between him and her computer screen. He stares at her hard, willing her to go on. A strange look washes over her and she continues against her better judgment, against her will. “He was linked to the murder of another student.” She shakes her head and rubs her temp
le, her essence warring with his energy. “Wait, if you’re his uncle, you should know this.” Panic immediately overtakes her. Agares glares at her. She squirms in her chair as he floods her with a current of power. Like a puppet he commandeers, she continues. “His sister graduated from here last year.”
“His sister. May I please have that address?” he asks.
“I’m not allowed to give out addresses.” Her mind, impressively strong for a woman in such a dull station in life, actually tries to resist him.
Leaning in, Agares decides the games are over. He will get what he came for. “Give me the address now.”
Her lower lip trembles for a split second before her body jerks into action as he moves her like a marionette. Her fingers dance across the keyboard and she pulls up the address he demanded. She scribbles it on a piece of paper with a trembling hand. “H-here.” She gives it to him.
Smiling nastily, he says, “Thank you.”
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she begs, tears welling and overflowing her lower lids.
Curling his upper lip in disgust, Agares finds her display of emotion revolting. He contemplates killing her just for making his stomach turn, but can’t make a scene in plain view of everyone. Instead he snatches the paper from her hand then turns on his heels and marches out. He climbs into his car, resets the navigation system and tears off in the direction laid out. Once he arrives at his destination, he sees two cars in the driveway. Excitement and the burning need for revenge course through his system. Allowing it to fuel him as it always does, he exits his car and immediately makes his way to the front door. Without knocking, he forces the handle, opening the door and gaining access. The smell of baked goods and the sound of a television program greets him as he crosses the threshold and strides down a long narrow hallway. To his right is a kitchen and straight ahead is a living room where two women sit watching TV. A petite blonde with eyes as blue as the sky turns her head and catches a glimpse of him. She returns her attention back to the television, the fact that she just saw him not registering immediately. However, as soon as it does, her head whips around and her eyes widen. She screams, a high, shrill sound that claws at his eardrums, which immediately causes the woman beside her to do the same. Feeling as though the sound may cause him to lose his temper and slaughter them before he finds Daniel, he raises a finger to his lips in a shooshing gesture. Both woman fall silent involuntarily, a fact that causes their features to gather in both shock and terror. They try to shout, to curse him, but their cries are muted. Not a sound escapes their throats. Agares won’t allow it.
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