Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3)

by Vicki Keire

  The longer the gate had me, the dizzier I felt. People were shouting my name, insistent hands grasped my shoulders. But nothing helped; the iron held me fast. The world seemed to tilt sideways as the gate opened even wider. Someone had me by the waist, keeping me from falling. I lolled like a rag doll.

  Then a flock of blackbirds flew overhead, blocking out what remained of the sun. The world went gray around me.

  “Put her head between her knees,” someone said. I felt myself being eased to the ground, multiple hands supporting my neck and upper body. The sharp pain of the punctures had faded to a dull throb.

  “Easy,” Cassandra barked from in front of me. I heard ripping cloth and opened my eyes to see her tearing at the hem of her skirt. My skirt, I realized. I frowned. I had liked that skirt.

  Ethan knelt and brushed my hair out of my eyes. He held my wounded hands palms-up in his own. “How are you feeling?” he asked gently, his own eyes huge with concern.

  “Unnh,” was my only reply.

  Cassandra shoved him roughly out of the way, kneeling in front of me with several makeshift bandages. She examined my wounds in the eerie half-light that filtered weakly through the trees. Several puncture marks radiated outward from the middle in a spiral pattern. Blood trickled down onto the ground. With ruthless efficiency, she wiped at the wounds with one of the pieces of my skirt before winding the remaining fabric around and around until my hands resembled a mummy’s. She managed to accomplish this before I even had a chance to ask what happened.

  “I’m going to kill that bastard,” Logan said through gritted teeth.

  “We have to find him first,” Jack said, turning to survey our new surroundings. “And something tells me that’s not going to be pleasant.”

  True enough, the forest on this side of the gate seemed darker, more malevolent, than it had just minutes before on the other side. Before, the trees were dense and choking as if they had managed to swallow most of the sunlight. Here they bowed toward us hungrily as if ready to consume us. The light was even scarcer. Looking out to the deep woods, I could almost see patches of midnight within.

  “Come on,” Cassandra said, pulling me gently to my feet. “Mrs. Alice can fix this, once we get to her.” She slipped an arm around my waist. “Maybe she can fix Bain, too,” she said with a wink. I managed a weak smile.

  The forest seemed to close in on us even more as we walked. I was lightheaded and felt like I was floating, so everything seemed surreal to me anyway, but I couldn’t help but notice that the others became more and more agitated the further in we went.

  Then I noticed the lights.

  Far off in the distance in the deepest pockets of shadows, pulses of brightness appeared in the near-dusk. I wanted to stop and look more closely, but Cassandra dragged me onward. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things―aftereffects of blood loss. But even when I blinked and looked away, the patches of glowing light remained.

  “Does anyone else see that?” I asked, softly, as if not wanting to disturb the forest around us.

  “I do,” Jack admitted, although there was reluctance in his voice. “It feels familiar here, somehow. As if I’ve been here before.” He frowned and studied one of the far-off patches of light. “No, it’s more like I’ve touched something like it before.”

  While I puzzled that over, I let my attention be caught by another pulse of light, closer to the trail this time. I pulled away from Cassandra when she tried to keep me moving, and stood and stared. I wasn’t just looking at random patches of light and shadows; no, what confronted me was an entire scene of some kind, a snapshot of a movie I didn’t yet understand.

  I saw Asheroth. A hazy, wintery version of him wavered just beyond the trees that lined the trail, blinking in and out of existence as I approached. He looked as if he had been fighting, and lost. His red leather jacket was missing, leaving him more vulnerable to attack. His black shirt and crimson pants were ripped in several places, revealing gaping wounds underneath. His eyes were wild with pain instead of madness, and he moved in ragged jerks, as if in a small, confined space trying to avoid invisible assailants.

  I broke free of Cassandra and rushed the tree line. Weeds and thorns tore at my jeans, but I was desperate to reach the vision of Asheroth. I had just left the path, however, when Jack grabbed my elbow and hauled me back, away from the dense underbrush.

  “But…!” I yelled, trying even harder to pull away from him. “Don’t you see? He’s being hurt!” I beat at Jack’s arms, trying to break away, but he only held me tighter.

  “Shh,” he tried to soothe me, but it wasn’t working. I could see Asheroth now, battered by invisible blows, the pain on his face growing sharper, more acute, with each passing second. Then he seemed to catch sight of me, and fixed me with haunted, pain-filled, accusatory eyes. I choked; I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. It was my fault he had been left behind, left to suffer unknown horrors.

  “It’s. Not. Real,” Jack said through gritted teeth. He shook me. “This place? I said it reminded me of something? Well, it’s like the Dreamtime is near, but instead it’s a series of nightmares. Like this place can sense your worst fears, your biggest guilt, and turn those into a living vision tailor made just for you. Don’t believe it, Caspia. You have to know, on some level, that it’s just a nightmare.”

  “A waking nightmare?” I echoed.

  “A nightmare forest where the fabric between worlds is thin,” Jack corrected. He pulled me back on to the path and I went, unresisting this time. The nightmare version of Asheroth had turned his back to me.

  “Can you see it?” I asked hoarsely, still not quite ready to let go of my vision.

  “No,” Jack said. “That’s because it’s not there. Not really. But it wasn’t too hard to figure out what you must be seeing. I know how you feel about it.”

  I was starting to wonder if Bain’s territory was worth it, even if it was where the other Guardians were supposed to be meeting, and even if it was the only safe Gate left in Whitfield.

  “It feels dangerous here,” I said, pulling my arms around me for warmth. The temperature in the nightmare forest seemed to have dropped about twenty degrees.

  “Anywhere that touches the Dreamtime puts us very close to Hunters,” Jack said, taking the point position of our group. “And that is very dangerous, indeed.”

  We walked faster now, trying very hard not to look out into the trees. I don’t know what the others saw, but it must have been frightening because everyone began to rush after that. I know that I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes, and heard disembodied sounds as if people were talking just off the path. I heard my parents at one point. That’s what it took to get me really mad, at last―if these were Bain’s defenses, he was playing dirty by bringing my dead parents into the nightmare.

  After what seemed like forever, we crested the top of a hill. The forest melted away on either side, and a vast clearing appeared. Regular, late afternoon sunlight streamed down on us. After the gloom we’d left behind, I wished I could literally bathe in it. The nightmare forest receded behind us. A huge, two-story house made of gray stone and slate. Ivy crawled up the outside walls, giving the place a stately appearance. It was if Bain’s residence belonged to multiple eras, unanchored in time.

  I supposed the other Guardians must have gotten there earlier. I wondered how long they had been waiting for us. Just how long had we been walking through the forest? Time seemed as if it had slowed and was now speeding up again.

  We paused on the porch, unsure of whether to knock or just walk right in. We were expected, after all. But while we stood there in the shade of the long porch, the door creaked open of its own accord. Deep mahogany floors and leaded glass windows gleamed from within. I took a first, hesitant step across the threshold, and was enveloped in a world of luxury.

  Asheroth’s compound had been nice. Blackwood Lodge was homey. I hadn’t been to the Gate located in the Hollow, but I had a hard time imagining anything lusher than
this house. A curving staircase twisted up in front of us. A marble topped table bore a floral arrangement that reached several feet high, towering in the center of the foyer. I could see a long dining room table, big enough to accommodate maybe twenty people, stretching off into the darkness. Parquet floors creaked ever so slightly beneath my feet, making me aware of just how filthy I was. I flexed my bandage-covered hands, making the puncture marks sting.

  “Bain!” Ethan prowled to the front of the group, keeping me behind him. “Answer me!”

  “Well, nice to see you too,” said our immaculately groomed host, appearing at the top of the curving stairs. He was dressed all in black, a vision of silk, cashmere, and wool. He glided down to stand right in front of me, ignoring Ethan entirely. “I see you made it, my dear,” he grinned, flashing me a very sharp-toothed smile. He reached down as if to take my hand in his and shook his head in mock dismay. “Oh dear. I see we had a little run-in with the security gate?”

  I crossed my arms and said nothing. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it had hurt. We did, after all, have to work with this man. But when this was over, when we didn’t need him anymore, Mr. Bain was going to find himself very sorry indeed. One look at Ethan showed that he echoed my thoughts.

  “Never mind,” I said, my smile full of saccharine. “Please just show us to the others, so we can get started.” I didn’t want to spend more than a single unnecessary minute in his company.

  “Oh, the planning’s already been accomplished,” he said, giving me a condescending look. He started off down the foyer. I dutifully followed him, trying to conceal my growing anger.

  “What do you mean, ‘already been accomplished’?” Logan echoed.

  “Well,” he drawled, and then turned to indicate a highly polished, frosted glass door. “I do hope you don’t mind that the grown-ups already made plans, but we simply couldn’t put it off any longer. You see, all the Gates and part of the town is now vulnerable to attack.” He paused as if this pained him, but he looked like he was trying hard to suppress his glee.

  “We know,” Cassandra snapped. “We just came from the town center.” Bain pushed the door open, revealing the rest of the Guardians and their companions. They looked up from a three-dimensional map that appeared to be floating in the middle of the room. Various parts were outlined in red and purple. Mrs. Alice frowned at me, and then Cassandra before rushing toward us.

  Before she could make it all the way, Bain blocked her. “We’ve decided to lure our enemies’ forces here, cutting them off from the rest of the town.”

  “Lure them?” I asked, not liking the sound of this plan at all. “Lure them how, exactly?”

  If Bain had been a cat, he would have been purring. “By offering them what they both want most, of course.” He brushed my cheek with a sharp fingernail. “The Gifted Nephilim.”

  “You mean…”

  He nodded. “You, the Dreamwalker, and your brother, of course.”

  ait,” I said slowly, letting the word hang heavy in the air. My hands hurt, and I was still shaking a little from the things I’d seen in the nightmare forest. For some reason, the idea of myself and those I cared about being used as bait didn’t bother me as much as it should have. Perhaps I was in shock from blood loss and my trek through the woods. Or perhaps I was just that used to the idea that I was always going to be in some kind of danger.

  Mrs. Alice shoved Bain aside with a sharp glare. He pretended not to notice. The elderly shopkeeper strode toward us with purpose, and stopped in front of me. She took my hands in hers and let them rest palm-up, so that the wounds were upturned to her.

  “We’ll have those fixed in just a minute,” she said, warmly, but with an edge. Then she dropped my hands and threw her arms around me. “It’s so wonderful to see you, dear.” She gave me a full-body squeeze.

  I startled at the strength in her ancient frame. “You too,” I said fervently.

  Mrs. Alice reminded me of the time before―when my brother and I were just average citizens of Whitfield, and the only strange thing about me was that I sometimes drew the future. None of this angels and demons stuff.

  Mrs. Alice began to dig in the pockets of her cardigan. Her right hand disappeared into the fabric up to her wrist, and then down halfway to her elbow as she furiously searched for something in the depths. My eyes bulged as she pulled a huge tube of something green from her right pocket; there was no way, according to the normal laws of physics, that it should have fit. I wondered what else she sheltered in there before Mrs. Alice turned to me with a wink.

  “Let’s see what we have.” She spoke in soothing tones as she unwound my bandages.

  Puncture wounds started at the dead center of my palms, and radiated outward. I counted ten or so such marks on each hand. Mrs. Alice clucked her tongue sympathetically, and rubbed the thick green ointment over my wounds. It smelled of eucalyptus, and tingled upon first contact. Jack and Ethan crowded close. Mrs. Alice wiped the green glop off with the rest of the bandages, and I gasped to see my skin whole again. I flexed them to test for pain, and no trace of it remained. Ethan ran a finger down the middle of my palm, making it tickle slightly. I offered a grateful smile to Mrs. Alice, who left me standing where I was and walked back to study the three-dimensional map once again.

  She shot Bain a look of pure venom as she went. This time, he saw her for sure. I could have sworn he blanched.

  Over in the middle of the room, where the map hung between everyone, the atmosphere was more charged. Jacob Eden paced while Bain tapped his fingers against his watch. No one took their eyes off the image with its rapidly changing patches of red and purple.

  “What’s it doing?” Logan asked.

  Cassandra stage whispered, “They’re running different battle scenarios. The map changes to show the different outcomes, based on strategy. We’re the purple, and the opposing forces are the red.”

  After several permutations, the map stopped on a static image, one where the purple was concentrated brightly in a small area, and the red was spread out to the sides. In this model, I could see Whitfield itself, and it remained mostly untouched by colors. The Light and Dark forces attacked a small point from both sides, leaving Whitfield mostly alone.

  “That’s it,” the pretty young girl attached to Jacob said. She sounded weary. “That’s the only scenario that leaves the town safe.”

  “Putting us right in the dead middle of all the conflict,” Bain added unnecessarily.

  A servant, all in black, brought in a tray of champagne in fluted glasses. Everyone ignored her except Bain, who snagged two glasses and downed them quickly before shooing the servant away.

  “Does this scenario depend on us being bait as Bain says?” Jack asked. There was a curt edge to his voice that let everyone know exactly what he thought of the plan. No one answered. They just looked at the three of us―me, Logan, and Jack―with varying degrees of sympathy.

  “No,” Ethan said, hugging me to his side. “There has to be another way.”

  “We have very limited resources, and two huge armies coming right for us,” Bain spoke in slow measured words, as if addressing a not-very-bright person. “We must use whatever advantages we have.”

  Logan and I caught each other’s gazes. Years of silent communication between siblings came in handy now. I could almost read his thought process. He was thinking about the importance of keeping the fighting contained, focused―I could just tell. I’m sure my thoughts were just as transparent to him. He nodded slightly, and I shrugged, lifting an eyebrow.

  “It’s okay, Ethan,” I said after a minute, running my hand across his where it rested softly against my waist. “We’ll do it. Bain’s right.”

  “We have to use every advantage we have,” Logan said, echoing our creepy host.

  “And I’m kind of used to feeling like bait,” Jack grinned. “At least this way, it’s for a good cause.”

  Ethan’s stony expression remained, however. “Then I’m go
ing, too.”

  “What could you possibly bring to the fight, boy?” Bain sneered.

  Ethan drew himself up to his full height, which was still taller than Bain. “I have been a fighter longer than any of you have been alive.” The heavy years of a lonely existence echoed under his words. “I know these enemies. I have fought them before, at the dawn of time and beyond. I won’t hide now.”

  A complex mix of emotions at the idea of Ethan standing with us swirled through me. Part of me wanted him as far away from the center as possible to spare him from harm. But another, bigger part of me, perhaps a more selfish part, wanted him near me no matter what. I squeezed his hand to let him know I agreed.

  I wanted him close because I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world without him.

  “And the rest of the town?” I asked, turning my attention back to the map. “What can we do?” I reached out toward the image, letting my fingers rest on what stood for Old Town Square. My job, my apartment, and my friends were all there. It was home, and I wanted to do all I could to protect it. Purple sparks flew from my fingers when I touched the map. I recoiled, but nothing seemed affected.

  “That’s where you come in, dear,” Mrs. Alice said. “We can raise special protections for the town, but only if we have all four Guardians present.”

  “We don’t have that,” I said, harsher than I’d intended to. It still hurt to think about him. He should be the one standing here, making plans. He was stronger than me.

  “I know.” Mrs. Alice moved to my side, taking my hand in hers. “He wanted you to take his place, you know,” she said softly. “He believed in you, even if you doubt yourself now. You can do this.”

  I nodded, miserable. “Just show me what to do.” I squared my shoulders. Whatever they wanted, I could do it. Be it blood sacrifice, or making bargains with demons, or…