by Vicki Keire
My back hit a wall. My fist was still jammed in my mouth, tasting of blood. The room was dark with tall windows. There was no longer anyone in the room but the two of us. Asheroth was gone. Coward, I thought.
“Caspia,” Ethan said. He stood, outlined against the door through which I’d just come, every muscle tensed as if to spring. I wanted to laugh, to howl like a madwoman. My shoulders shook, and I realized it wasn’t with laughter. It was sobs. He watched me like a feral cat. Once again, in this room, I was prey.
“Don’t you see?” I gasped out. Teeth marks on my knuckles. Laughter and tears. Ethan’s feather-light touch reaching for me, finding nothing. My chest heaved; there was no air. “It was here. In this room.” I pointed to the wall beside him, to the life-size painting of my ancestress. Katerina? I didn’t even have the right name. “This is where he brought me. All those months ago.”
Lightning flashed in his eyes, again and again. No weight of worlds on his back now. No wings, no planes of Light. Tonight he carried it on his soul, if he had such a thing. I could see the weight of it dragging him down, his shoulders thrown forward as if attached to me by some invisible tether he both fought and cherished. The space between us taut, momentous, made of glass; who would speak and shatter us? Which would reach for the other, who would set in motion a silence made of years? He moved towards me, a slow uncoiling of muscle and sinew. “You’re safe now. I would never let anything hurt you, not anywhere, not anyone.”
“I realized I loved you,” I said against my wall. “Here, in this room. When I thought I was going to die. I wanted… I thought you were…” The fist was back in my mouth.
He ignored my words, focused instead on my body’s language. Exactly like a predator. A benevolent predator, waiting to gather his prey. I sobbed. I had weapons. I was dangerous. I would make him take me seriously. I would force him to tell me the truth.
“Put it down,” he said before I even realized I was holding Katerina’s dagger. “You don’t need it. Not here. No one’s going to hurt you.”
“Did you do it?” The raven etching flashed as I moved it. “Did you kill them?”
To his credit, he didn’t even look at the blade. He never took his eyes off my face. “You’re upset. Of course you are. But I’m not your enemy, Caspia. I’m not even Nephilim, good or bad. Cut me with that and I’ll bleed.” He flipped his wrist up and jerked up his sleeve. Seventeen stitches from mid-wrist to the crook of his elbow. “Remember? Remember the knife in the dishwater? I wanted to cook for you because I never had. But you wouldn’t let me.”
“Because you were so clumsy,” a voice that might have belonged to me whispered.
“Yes! Yes.” At my shaky whisper, Ethan began to breathe again. “Because I was so clumsy. So we decided to make a cheese plate, because you said nothing was safer than cheese. But you started arguing about the three second rule because Logan wanted to eat off the floor.”
“He dropped a piece,” I whispered again.
Ethan inched towards me. “Yes. You said anything on the floor belonged to Abigail. I wanted to start over, but there were no knives, so I tried to wash one.” Don’t hurt yourself, he begged me with his eyes.
“But there was already one in the dishpan.” A moment of relief that his story could bring me back from whatever dark place I’d gone. Then I remembered. I looked again at the dagger in my hand. It was duller than the bracelets he’d given me. They looked like liquid stars in the dark. I shoved the dagger back in my belt. “Did you do it?” I demanded again.
He straightened. “Yes. Yes I did. I fought in the first Nephilim war.”
I flinched. “Did you want to?”
“Yes.” He sounded very far away. “I thought it was the right thing to do. I was very different then. Everything was black or white. Good or evil. It’s not like that now. I would take it back if I could. Remember what I said when Dr. Christian tried to take you? That I had never wanted to kill someone as badly as I did right then?” I nodded. I couldn’t look at him. “I was talking about myself.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I walked past him blindly. “I’d like to lay down now.”
“Caspia?” he said softly as I passed him. He didn’t try to touch me or stop me. “I’m sorry. I know it’s inadequate, but it’s true. Just please don’t do anything reckless,” he called after me.
It didn’t change anything, except maybe make things a little easier. I wouldn’t feel so bad about what I had decided to do. “Leave me alone, Ethan.” I didn’t look back as I picked a random identical white bedroom to wait for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
White Box
They come to me, both of them, and talk to me.
They want me to talk back. If I do, they’ll feel better. Like I’m no longer a broken thing they don’t know how to fix. They won’t have to think about all the ways they broke me.
Time is funny here. It goes fastest when my mind is blank as the walls, as white as the smooth cotton comforter underneath me. But it drags when I remember.
The pictures. People like me. Hunted, dying. My people. I thought I knew what that meant. All my life I thought I knew what that meant. But now I know there was a whole world of people with darkness in their blood, and light too, and gifts that sang in them and strangled sometimes but always were a part of them, a part they knew and didn’t fight. I’d seen it in those pictures. They died afraid for their lives, not in fear of their blood or their gifts or each other.
I have loved a Nephilim. I have loved a human. I have never loved another like myself because until last night, when my brother exploded with stolen gifts, I’ve always been kept in a safe sterile world. Protected in Whitfield. Protected by wards, by neighbors, by Nephilim. While others like me are hunted, enslaved, forced to fight.
I realize I want to join them not to save my town or my brother, but because I want to. I want to be with my own kind, not a human and a Nephilim who hurt me because they think they love me.
I want to know this darkness in my blood. I want to know myself.
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Delivery Service
“Caspia,” Asheroth said gently. “You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. You have to be hungry. I’ll bring you anything you want. Just tell me what it is.”
Of the two of them, he was the only one who had the nerve to sit on the bed with me, perched on the very edge. If either of them had tried to touch me I don’t know what I would have done. Bitten them, maybe. Certainly growled. I think they sensed that and so they stayed away. But Asheroth came in every now and then, and then he’d go away for a while.
He seemed determined to bring me stuff. If he brought me enough stuff, maybe he thought it would make up for all those brutal murders he committed thousands of years ago. Asheroth brought me piles of clothing, still on hangers and in clear plastic bags. “I brought you some things to wear,” he said, his pale skin strangely flat in the darkened bedroom. It was only a few shades lighter than the walls. He brought an odd assortment; evening gowns, a swimsuit, what might have been a fur coat. I turned my back and faced the other identical white wall.
Ethan was in that corner. In his way, he was as traumatized as I was. He didn’t speak or even move. He kept his own silent vigil with me, standing motionless in the same corner, eyes the color of the St. Clare fixed on me the whole time. Eventually, I got tired of feeling his eyes on me. I turned my back on him and faced the other identical white wall.
Asheroth appeared again with various offerings. He brought more clothes, bags and bags of them, from Parisian stores with elegant names. He brought a huge box of art supplies that he set down carefully at the foot of the bed. He pulled out item after item to show me: pastels and so many tubes of oils I had never heard of some of the colors; pencils and boxes of graphite and blending sticks; bottles of linseed oil and turpentine.
I rolled over. Ethan still stared at me, his arms folded across his chest. I felt as if there was an invisible cord of miser
y tying us together. I rolled back over.
Asheroth brought: shoes, more clothes, books, jewelry, and an entire bag of cheese pastries. Ethan didn’t move. He continued to radiate misery from his corner. He finally told Asheroth to stop bringing me things when the piles around the bed reached ridiculous proportions. Being Asheroth, of course he didn’t listen. He appeared at the side of the huge white bed with full Dark wings at his back. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. I’d never seen him travel the Realms without it. Instead, he held it cradled close to his chest like it was a baby. His cold stone face was a strange mixture of terror and hope.
Then his red leather jacket began to twist in his arms, howling and hissing like a small and very angry demon.
“I brought your cat,” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. “Obviously,” he added with distaste.
“Let her go! Are you crazy?” I yelled, making a grab for Asheroth’s jacket. I jerked back as the Nephilim released a very angry Abigail. Abby raced under the bed and yowled her displeasure. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That Caspia would want her cat,” he said archly, as if transporting cats through time and space wrapped in modern-day celestial battle armor was the most logical thing in the world. “I also watered your plants and checked your mail. Your have a most pressing offer from the cable company.”
Abigail hissed. I stuck my head under the bed, trying to see where she’d gone and gauge the depth of her wrath.
Asheroth cleared his throat. “It is a time sensitive offer, you know. I thought you would be grateful.”
“If you ever touch my cat or my mailbox again, I will carve my name in that stone skin of yours,” I threatened. Asheroth raised an eyebrow. Slightly.
“It means the wards are broken,” Ethan said unexpectedly from his corner. “It would take something very nasty and very powerful to break those wards. I helped set them. If we’d been there, all three of us would be completely vulnerable.”
Asheroth beamed. “Exactly, Ethan. You understand completely how important it was to rescue the cat.”
I groaned and stuck my head under the bed, talking to Abigail in a singsong voice. Eventually she did come out, and snuggled up to my stomach. She hissed at Asheroth every time he came near me. I would never admit it, but I was grateful he’d gone for her.
Ethan continued to watch us mournfully from his corner.
After Asheroth announced that it was dinnertime, I knew it was getting close to dark. Time to put my plan in motion. I felt Abigail’s rumbling purr against my stomach and closed my eyes tight. I was still determined to go. They’d hurt me.
But I loved them still.
“I think I am hungry after all,” I croaked. I hadn’t said a word in what seemed like forever. My throat felt like sandpaper and sounded worse. I let my fingers trail through Abigail’s fur as I rolled flat on my back. It was easier to lie back and look at the ceiling than tell lies to their faces. “Is there anything to eat? I don’t really care what.”
I didn’t even to try to sound pathetic. It came out naturally.
Asheroth was beside me, Nephilim-quick. “Of course,” he said, smiling down at me. “I’ll make you something. Or perhaps you’d prefer delivery. I know a place in Tokyo.”
I nodded. I tugged on the t-shirt Cassandra had given me in what seemed like another life. “I could use a shower. And something to wear.”
“You’ve got plenty of new clothes,” Asheroth soothed. “I’ll take care of everything else. When you’re ready, I’ll be just upstairs. Just call if you need us.” I nodded.
Ethan said stonily, “I’m not leaving.”
The red-clad Nephilim spun on him. “She has to get dressed. She wants privacy.” Ethan didn’t move.
I stared back at Ethan. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said again.
For a moment, I saw images of death and burning, and I winced. He saw it and jerked back like I’d hit him. Amazing, I thought. How could I possibly have known that we could hurt each other in exact proportion to how much we loved?
“Please,” I whispered over cracked lips. “Leave.”
That, too, he took like a blow. “Don’t do this,” he said, leaving his corner for the first time all day. I found myself sitting, facing him. Our knees almost touched. I didn’t remember moving. “Don’t leave.”
He knew. I could see it in his eyes, in the careful way he swayed towards me. Somehow, he had figured it out. But he wouldn’t tell. He’d had hours to tell, and he hadn’t yet.
He was going to let me walk away from him and into his version of Hell if that’s what I wanted. He was going to let me go.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
If I sat there looking at him much longer, I was going to break down and confess, or scream and hurt him. I wasn’t sure which, and I didn’t want to find out. I ran for the bathroom and stood motionless under the steamy water. I hadn’t really intended to take a shower, but I had to get away from that room and the people in it. I started breathing again. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.
There was a plan. It was time to put it in action.
When I came back out, wrapped in a fluffy towel as white as the bed, Ethan was gone. I pawed through the ridiculous piles of clothes Asheroth had brought. I dressed as sensibly as possible, since everything appeared to be from French boutiques. Dark jeans with what I hoped were rhinestones on the pockets went underneath a whisper-light cashmere sweater. Leather boots with a little too much style for an escape plan were next. I thought about the fact that I was entering a potential combat situation that I knew very little about and stuffed my pockets with the few useful items I could quickly lay my hands on. Last of all was the belt Cassandra had given me. I slipped Katerina’s sheathed silver daggers into the loops at the small of my back and pulled my sweater over them.
I left Ethan’s black leather jacket in the center of the bed. He might need it back. Abigail nuzzled it and lay across it with a proprietary flick of her tail.
I smelled bacon and coffee. They really were cooking for me. For a second, I felt terrible. And hungry. But it passed. I dug through the box of art supplies for the turpentine, cracked it open, and stuffed the first scarf I thought would burn down its neck.
The portrait room was unlocked. I wondered what Katerina, my assassin ancestress, would have done in my situation. I was counting on Asheroth’s attachment to her portrait. Don’t let me down, I thought at her. This is my first demon-killing mission. I lit the scarf and threw it carefully away from her portrait, towards a cloth sofa I’d once occupied lifetimes ago.
God bless modern construction. Before long, the fire alarms went off. I hid in the bathroom under the stairs and silently prayed while Ethan sped down the stairs, beating on doors. I’d locked every single one. He began methodically breaking them down when I didn’t answer. Asheroth used portals to move from room to room trying to find me.
It was too easy to slip up the stairs and out the empty casement. I heard Abigail spitting and hissing as I went. Good girl, I thought, amused. Someone was going to be sorry for rescuing her twice in one day.
I sprinted into the tree line. I just had to make it into the forest, past the mist wall, Dr. Christian had said. If I could do that, they would find me. The mist wall was designed to keep them out more than it was to keep me in. I just had to run in the opposite direction from Whitfield. At least, that’s what I hoped.
South. I had to run south. My sense of direction had never been all that accurate, but I used the St. Clare for orientation. The forest grew thicker as I ran. Pines and oaks grew thicker and taller around me, the forest floor littered with fallen branches and piles of leaves and dense undergrowth in places. My hair got caught on the lower hanging branches and pulled painfully, but I kept running.
The mist grew thicker as I ran. White tendrils of it snaked through my hair, across my skin. Soon it grew so heavy it felt as if I was breathing through a wet blanket. I was forced to go slow
er because I could barely see. But I kept moving. I was too afraid not to; it was entirely possible I might get so lost now I wouldn’t find either Dr. Christian or my way back to Asheroth’s compound. Given what I’d learned about travel between the compounds, there was no telling where I might accidentally end up.
The mist thinned the further I pushed, but it was still hard to see. I began to hear strange noises, almost as if there were people whispering all around me. It reminded me of the very first time I‘d dreamed of Jack. The same muted whispering voices had urged me onward then, too. But then sometimes they would grow softer and I knew it was nothing but trees. I had no house or river to orient me now, so I could only hope that the vague sense inside me urging me forward was pointing me south still. I heard the unmistakable call of wolves, far away. The mist had thinned enough to make it possible to see tree trunks, so I began to run again. I did not want to encounter wolves, supernatural or mundane.
And then I hit a tree so hard it knocked me flat on my back. I fell so hard I was momentarily blinded and had to struggle for breath. When I could see again, I was almost sorry.
It wasn’t a tree. I’d run straight into someone I knew. Someone I didn’t like very much.
I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
The Dark Nephilim in the snakeskin jacket who had fought with Asheroth against Ethan and I last winter smiled at me. Most unpleasantly, I might add. “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded between ragged breaths.
“Hello to you too,” he said. He held out a hand. I stared at it, incredulous. He grinned. “I’m the delivery service. What’s the matter? Not who you expected?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
The Twilight Kingdom
The Dark Nephilim tried on a smile. It looked as if it wanted to squirm away. “You aren’t planning on being difficult, are you?”
I swallowed my anger, fisting my hands against the Shadows. Not yet. “We had a bargain,” I said as calmly as I could. “No difficulty on my end if there’s none on yours.”