by Sara Reinke
He heard voices in the distance, sharp and alarmed, as people from the hospital, alerted by the gunshots, came hurrying outside to see what had happened. “Help is coming, Sam,” he promised, kissing her brow, alarmed by how ashen and icy her skin seemed all at once. She was unconscious and didn’t answer. Frightened, he clutched her to his chest and turned toward the sound of approaching footsteps. “Help!” he shouted. “Somebody help us!”
“You have to leave now.”
Jason whirled and saw Gabriel standing nearby, half-hidden in the shadows beside the patio hedge. It didn’t take a genius—or a doctor—to assess Sam’s condition and realize why Gabriel was there.
“No.” Laying Sam gently on the pavement, he stumbled to his feet, squaring off against the gatekeeper, his fists balled. “I won’t let you take her.”
Gabriel raised his brow, smiling slightly, as if amused. “I didn’t come here for her. I came for you.” When Jason drew back, uncertain and surprised, he said, “She’s not going to die, Jason. But you’ve a soul marked for the Nephilim here.” He nodded to indicate Bear, and as he spoke, Jason watched a bright glow kiss Bear’s brow, searing a small but distinctive mark on his forehead. The stink of burning flesh filled his nose, and when the bright point of light faded, it left behind the distinctive blackened mark of the damned, a wide-mouthed V, the chevron of the Nephilim.
“They’ll be here any moment to claim him,” Gabriel said. “If they find you, if they catch you…”
He didn’t have to say more. Mara’s promise remained fresh and vivid in Jason’s mind.
Trust me, boy, Sitri’s mercies were tender compared to what I have planned for you…
Jason glanced down at Sam as she murmured fitfully in unconsciousness.
“She’s not going to die,” Gabriel told him again. “If she was, I’d see it. She’d have a mark of light on her forehead to let me know it was time.”
“I can’t leave her or Mei,” Jason said. “They’re hurt.”
With a pointed glance at the hospital building just beyond his shoulder, Gabriel said, “I think they’re in the best place they could possibly be in that case.” He held out his hand. “We have to go. The Nephilim are almost here. I can feel it.”
Jason could feel it too, that strange, electrified sensation shivering through his body that meant another like him, a creature of the Netherworlde, was close at hand. The outer wall of the annex building suddenly seemed to swell outward, a football-sized blister that formed and began to bubble outward, getting bigger and bigger. At first, Jason thought he was imagining things, but when he shook his head, blinked fervently, he realized he wasn’t.
“Shedim,” Gabriel hissed, his eyes widening in alarm as he backpedaled. “Jason, come on. It takes them a minute to fully coalesce and emerge. We have to go now.”
There was no more time to argue. As Jason watched, the concrete wall bowed outward, parting along a broad seam like a mouth, like a sheet drawn taut over some kind of monstrous head that strained and struggled to escape. He kissed Sam’s brow one last time, then left her side, hurrying to Gabriel’s.
“Close your eyes,” Gabriel said, clapping his hand against Jason’s shoulder, and then a blinding white light like a nuclear warhead suddenly burst across the middle of the smoking patio, obliterating everything, swallowing them whole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Where’s Nemamiah?” Jason asked, frowning as he surveyed Gabriel’s empty living room upon their return to the apartment.
“I don’t know.” Unlike Jason, or even Nemamiah or Sarea, using his powers seemed to take an immediate, physical toll on Gabriel, leaving him drained and weak. His injuries likely only compounded this and as Jason watched, he leaned heavily against a nearby wall, exhausted and spent. “Probably back to the Netherworlde. The Ophanim will need to be told about what happened to Sarea.”
He limped into the bedroom. After a few moments, he returned with an opened bottle of beer in hand. “Don’t worry,” he told Jason, tilting his head back and taking a long gulp. “He’ll be back for you. You’ll be safe here in the meantime. As long as you don’t use your powers, the Nephilim can’t track you. Want a beer?”
“No, thanks.” Jason shook his head. “What do you mean, he’ll be back for me?”
“To take you back, like we’d planned,” Gabriel said, surprised. “Like we talked about before. To bring you to the Ophanim.”
“I told you before. The deal’s off.”
“He’s not going to betray you,” Gabriel said. “You can trust Nemamiah.”
“Yeah, just like I could trust Sarea,” Jason remarked with a frown. “Or you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gabriel asked.
“Sarea told me you were drunk on the night I died, the night you were supposed to take me to the Netherworlde.”
“Yeah, well, Sarea lied,” Gabriel said. “I wasn’t drunk. I was trying to kill myself.” It was Jason’s turn to do a surprised double take, and Gabriel smile thinly, with precious little humor. “I cut my wrists open with a knife marked by the triquetra. Thought that ought to do the trick. But one of my good brothers here”—he motioned with his hand to indicate rectory—“interrupted me before I could finish. Left some nasty scars, though. Talismanic weapons will do that.”
He unbuttoned his cuff and rolled his sleeve back toward his elbow. “Look,” he said, holding his arm out so Jason could see the grisly series of ragged horizontal and vertical slashes left indelibly etched against the pale flesh.
“Why would you do that?” Jason asked quietly.
“Because I’ve been around for more than two thousand years,” Gabriel replied with a sad and humorless smile. “And I’m tired. Trust me, kid. You see that much injustice, war, famine, drought, raping, pillaging, plundering, plague and taxation without representation, and the cold, black nothing of the Outer Realm is going to start to look mighty sweet to you too.”
He met Jason’s gaze, his smile fading, his eyes plaintive. “I’m sorry. Sarea was right in that it’s my fault this happened to you, because it was my place to come to you in the hospital, take you to the Edge. If I’d known what had happened to you, what she’d done, where you’ve been, I would have done something to help you a lot sooner. But I can help now.”
He went to one of the living room windows and blew lightly against the glass, frosting it. “I can make things right for you,” he said, raising his fingertip to mark against the windowpane, to draw a sigil to summon Nemamiah from the Netherworlde.
“No.” Jason dissolved into shadow. In an instant, he’d crossed the room and rematerialized within a foot of the priest, close enough to reach out and catch him by the hand, stopping him before he began to write. “No,” he said again. “I’m not going back to the Netherworlde, Gabriel. Ever.”
“Jason, I told you…” Gabriel began, but Jason cut him off.
“I know what you told me and I believe you. This isn’t about not trusting Nemamiah—or you. Not anymore. It’s about me. And I’m not going back.”
Gabriel’s brows lifted, pleading. “If you stay, I can’t protect you. I won’t be able to help you anymore. The Nephilim are hunting you, and the Elohim will be, too, if you choose this path. If you break your pact with Nemamiah, he’s going to consider you an enemy and come after you with everything he has, all the power at his command. All the Elohim will.”
“Let them,” Jason said with a conviction he definitely didn’t feel. Gabriel’s words had sent an uneasy shiver down his back and left a gnawing ache deep in his gut. Alone now, he thought. I’ll be all alone.
Gabriel looked at him, his expression imploring. After a long moment, when he realized Jason wasn’t going to change his mind, he shook his head and sighed heavily. “Fine, then,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “It’s your choice. Your ass on the line. If you leave now, I’ll pretend you weren’t even here.”
Jason held out his hand to the priest. “Thank you, Gabriel. For everything.�
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Gabriel accepted the shake, then pulled Jason against him in a brief but warm embrace. “You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
There were a lot of miles between the coast of northern California and Alaska and as Jason leaned his head against the cool glass of the bus window, he kept a running tally in his mind while each rolled by outside. He didn’t know anyone in Juneau, had no friends there, no family. It seemed as good a destination as any for someone wanting to start over again, find a new life. Or, as in this case, a new afterlife.
“Everything okay?” Sam asked from beside him, and in the glass, he could see her face reflected, ghostlike and worried, as she leaned over.
He turned to her and smiled, slipping his fingers through his and drawing her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Right now, I’d say it couldn’t be much better,” he said, making her smile.
He’d promised her he wouldn’t leave, and he hadn’t, remaining in the city long throughout her hospitalization. He’d visited with her almost daily as she’d recovered, stealing in and out of her room while she was sleeping, slipping through cracks in the ventilation system or beneath doors or through windows, all unnoticed and undetected.
Only Sam had known of his clandestine visits, and when he’d finally mustered the courage to slip an engagement ring onto her finger as she slept, she’d come to and smiled for him. It wasn’t the same ring he’d bought for her years ago but it had filled the bill—an inexpensive stone in a plain gold setting he’d been able to buy with the credit card he’d lifted from Dean’s wallet.
“Hey, you,” she’d murmured, closing her hand softly against his. She’d smiled at him, sleepy and dazed. When she’d felt the unfamiliar friction of the ring, she’d looked down at it. Whatever puzzlement she felt faded quickly from her face, and she’d blinked up at him, realizing.
“Marry me, Sam,” he’d whispered.
“It’s about damn time,” she’d replied, cracking a smile, a weary laugh as she’d pulled him down to the bed for a kiss.
He’d gone to see Mei once before they’d left, at a drug rehabilitation clinic Gabriel had found. Dressed in slouchy clothes, her hair dyed black on all sides again, she’d looked remarkably young to him, fresh-faced and rosy cheeked, healthy for the first time, if not happy. He’d caught sight of her on a patio on the center grounds, sitting among a circle of other teens, laughing and smoking cigarettes. Though she’d cut her eyes his way, as if sensing him somehow, she’d looked quickly away when distracted by a young man her age, one who sat within a close enough proximity to mean more than just friends. Jason had known then she’d be all right, that she’d be safe here and he wasn’t abandoning her to face her own brand of demons.
She’s going to be okay, Jason thought, watching as the bus left the last lingering suburbs of Vancouver behind them. The sun was setting with a backwash of fuchsia, gold and lavender, and the iridescent colors smeared together, reflected against the glass, draping his face in overlapping hues.
“Are you hungry?” he asked Sam, leaning forward, reaching for a backpack he’d wedged beneath the seat in front of him. Inside, he’d packed some snacks to bring with them on the road, including a pack of chocolate-covered doughnuts, her favorites.
“Not right now,” she said with a smile. “But thanks.”
She’d left Barton in Gabriel’s custody and care, and when they’d dropped the dog off at the rectory, they’d exchanged farewells with them both. The dog’s shiny black nose had quivered in wary curiosity as it had sniffed Jason’s proffered hand, and when its tail had swished back and forth in almost begrudging good will, Jason had unfurled his fingers and scratched beneath its chin. “Good dog,” he’d told it. “I’ll take care of Sam for you. I promise.”
Barton had offered him another tail wag and a bark, his way of saying, You damn well better.
Before leaving the rectory, Gabriel had written something quickly on the back of a business card, a quick series of intersecting lines, another sigil of some sort.
“That one’s mine,” Gabriel had said. “You two get into trouble, call me with it. Just draw it on the ground, against a foggy window, on a bathroom wall, wherever. It only has to be visible for a second and I’ll sense it, see it in my mind. I’ll come.”
“I thought you couldn’t help me if I left.” Jason had arched his brow.
Gabriel had offered a quick laugh. “Yeah, well, I might make an exception just once or twice, as long as it doesn’t get to be a habit.” He’d clapped Jason on the shoulder. “You take care. Trust your senses. You’ll feel us around you, Elohim and Nephilim. You start to get that prickling sensation, you get the hell out of Dodge. There’s no shame in running, especially given the alternative.”
“I will,” Jason said with a nod.
Gabriel had also offered him something else—his pistol. “You’ll need a talismanic weapon,” he’d said.
Jason thought of the tattoo on his shoulder, and the power it had imbued in him when he had killed Sarea. “No,” he’d told Gabriel with a smile. “I won’t.”
He was growing used to the Eidolon. Its incessant coldness within him had come to be a constant reminder of its presence, its power and potential. He could feel it inside him now. It liked the encroaching darkness. He could see it in his reflection, thin rivulets of shadow creeping out in slow-moving tendrils along the glass, so thin and small, like strands of hair, they would be all-but invisible to most anyone. But Jason had come to recognize it now, the way it looked, the way it felt, its actions, reactions, instincts and impulses. Because they’re mine now too, he thought. It’s just like Gabriel said. The Eidolon is a part of me.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
The woman seated across the aisle from Jason and Sam had tried several times to strike up a conversation with them since they’d left the depot hours earlier. Her name was Lana and after the young couple’s noncommittal responses or utter lack of attention, she’d given up. She’d noticed the two of them gazing outside, however, and had lowered one of the ear plugearplugs of an MP3 player to give small talk one last shot.
“You kids ever been up this way before?” she asked, and when they shook their heads, polite but noncommittal, she leaned over and patted Sam on the arm. “Just wait, then, ’til we get a little farther north, near the Yukon border.” She dropped a conspiratorial wink. “People say it’s a little piece of heaven.”
Jason glanced at Sam and smiled. “What do you know?” he said, as outside the window, shadows slowly descended upon the outside world, engulfing everything in the comforting cover of darkness. “That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Definitely an author to watch.” That's how Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine describes Sara Reinke. New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards calls Reinke “a new paranormal star” and Love Romances and More hails her as “a fresh new voice to a genre that has grown stale.” Dark Thirst and Dark Hunger, the first two books in The Brethren SeriesTM of vampire romance are available from Kensington/Zebra Books, while the third installment, Dark Passion, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. The series continues in 2011 with Dark Passages: Tristan & Karen, Dark Passages 2: Pilar & Elías and Dark Vengeance, from Bloodhorse Press, and in a free online graphic novel, Dark Interludes, available at: www.sarareinke.com.