My skin was ghostly white—deathly pale. Oz ushered me into the blistering spray of the shower without a word, though he stared at me intently. He looked pained in his silence, as though holding his tongue was the greatest challenge he had faced that night. I stood awkwardly, bent in on myself from the incessant contracting of my muscles, and let the water pelt me, burning my exterior while my insides remained frozen to the core.
My plan was not working.
“I can’t stop shaking,” I uttered through chattering teeth.
“I know,” he said, eying me tightly. “The cold you feel has nothing to do with temperature. It is the start of the emptiness.”
“I have always been cold . . . this is far worse,” I whispered shakily.
He stared at me momentarily, then reached in without my suggestion and turned off the water, wrapping me immediately afterward in a towel. His hands worked furiously to dry me before he scooped me up yet again and carried me downstairs to my room.
“I don’t know what to do for you,” he said angrily, “but something must be done. He may not have succeeded in taking your soul, but he took something nonetheless. Something that needs to be replaced.”
“He said I had so little left,” I whispered faintly. It was becoming increasingly arduous to talk while my body constricted against my lungs. “What did he mean?”
“Light,” Oz replied with his back to me. “He meant you have little light left in your soul. It had already been overcome by darkness, or maybe it was never very light to begin with. Either way, the irony of that is it may have been your saving grace. Souls are not easily taken. Apparently yours was harder to steal than most.”
“I felt the evil . . .”
“It’s not hard to when it’s sucking on your face.” His voice was harsh, but when he looked up at me, his eyes falling heavy on mine, there was something in them—pain. “Don’t worry about that . . . it’s not important now,” he said, getting up to search for warm clothing to give me. He handed me what he could find, then continued. “Do you remember anything? Anything about what happened?”
“My memories,” I whispered, shuddering at the pain I had relived.
“What about them?” he pressed, squatting before me. There was urgency in his expression as he leaned in closer to me.
“It was as though he was sifting through them, selecting certain ones and leaving me to relive others.”
“Do you remember what he tried to take?”
“No,” I whispered. “All I remember were the things I had long ago forgotten. Things I had not wanted to recall. Whatever he found while rummaging through my memories, he kept.”
Oz cursed loudly as he helped to layer the clothing he found onto my body.
“Your father—Hades—you love him, right?”
I considered his question for a moment.
“I do,” I answered, confusion evident in my expression. “But I cannot remember why. I feel that I cared for him, but I cannot think of anythihin="7ng that would warrant that emotion toward him.”
“Shit!” Oz shouted, throwing something heavy across the room. “Can you think of anything that ever made you happy? That brought you joy of any sort, no matter how little?” I shook my head in negation. “Fine,” he replied, his eyes darting around as though searching the room we occupied for the answers he sought. “What if you could replace what was taken?” His words were spoken aloud, though they sounded like a thought that he had accidentally allowed to escape. After a moment of silence, he focused on my eyes, leaning against my legs as he moved in so close that our noses nearly brushed. “What if you could fill the emptiness, Khara? What if you could fill it with memories like those that were stolen?”
“More memories?” I replied, not following his train of thought.
“Memories . . . feelings. But new ones. Lighter ones.” He captured my face in his hands, gently demanding my attention. “Khara—”
The smashing of the front door interrupted him, the start of a ruckus breaking out upstairs. My brothers had returned.
“Think, Khara,” Oz growled, grabbing my face more fiercely. My mind momentarily cleared. “Does nothing bring you happiness? Is there nothing that could fill this void?”
I stared into his deep brown eyes, wondering if anything could replace what light was stolen. The desperation I found in them was startling. His dark expression accurately portrayed his hopelessness, which implied that he, for once in the time I had known him, felt something other than anger, bitterness, or entitlement. He dropped his hands to my shoulders, sliding them down my arms while we continued to stare at each other in silence. My shaking quieted in his grip.
“Khara!” Casey rumbled from the floor above, reminding me that they, too, had been embroiled in battle that night. Until that moment, I had not known what the outcome was. At least Casey had survived.
I looked back to Oz, only to find his formerly panicked face masked by its normal arrogance.
“I am all right,” I called loudly enough to be heard both through the door and over the commotion above.
The basement door nearly flew off its hinges before Casey descended the stairs while two others followed him down. They quickly consumed the space around Oz and me.
“What happened to her, Oz?” Drew asked, his tone threatening. “Explain.”
“I think, Drew, that the body upstairs along with the ones littering the street outside should be explanation enough, don’t you?” he replied, coming to stand nose-to-nose with my brother.
“Do not trifle with me on this, Ozereus. Not this time. I want answers. Now.”
“Then it is Khara who you should interrogate,” Oz said casually as he stared Drew down. “I simply walked in on a Stealer making out with her. I stabbed him through the throat, as was needed. The rest is Khara’s story to tell.”
“Did he take anything?” Pierson asked, pushing past them to hover over me slightly.
“I do not know for sure. Memories, I think,” I replied faintly. “But I felt the emptiness . . . and the cold.”
“You are lucky she’s okay,” Drew threatened, still posturing with Oz.
Pierson eyed me intently, looking me over before asking his next question.
“That has yet to be determined.” He examined me as best he could as the others came to crowd around him. “And now? Do yÜAn casuallou feel the cold now?”
“No,” I whispered, looking down at my previously shaking limbs. “I do not.” He looked as surprised as I felt. It had been only moments before that I wished for the cold to cease, yet somehow, in my dealings with Oz, I had missed its disappearance entirely.
Oz ripped his gaze from Drew’s long enough to look down at me strangely before he pushed his way past him, heading up the stairs.
Drew whispered something to Pierson before following after Oz. Casey, who must have retreated from the initial chaos surrounding me, approached slowly from the shadows of the basement. Rounding the foot of the bed, he stopped just in front of me, silently staring me down. I returned his glare with equal force. That had become our standard form of communication. When he seemed satisfied with my response, he gave a brisk nod of his head and laid his hand on my shoulder, ever so slightly squeezing it once.
He indicated to Pierson that they should join Drew upstairs, presumably to deal with the shell of the Stealer still lying on the living room rug—along with those strewn about the street. Just as Pierson started to argue, claiming I was in need of further attention, there was another outbreak of noise from the first floor. One far louder than before. The two of them raced up the staircase, and I found myself leaping off the bed to follow closely behind them. For no reason that I could explain, I felt a tightening in my chest.
Something was amiss.
“Where is she?” an unfamiliar voice roared, echoing off the walls.
Before an explanation was given, I broke into the living room to see a staggering sight. The shredded body of the Stealer danced through the air beautifully, the tin
y flakes showering down on all who stood there, covering the room with a macabre layer of snow-like matter.
I looked through squinted eyes to see a nearly unrecognizable Kierson, covered in blood and breathing heavily. He clutched daggers fiercely in both of his hands. As the pieces of the petrified body settled throughout the room, I was able to see him more clearly. His eyes were black as night, his hair disheveled. He looked at me as though he would attack and kill at any moment.
“I am here,” I said quietly.
“Did he touch you?” he asked between sharp inhales.
“Yes.”
He threw his head back violently and let loose a sound so penetrating and sharp that the entire room, including its occupants, shook while the mirror behind me shattered. When he stopped, he brought his gaze back slowly to meet mine. His eyes had lightened and the fierceness in them had left. A familiar sadness replaced it.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine,” I replied softly. “From what can be ascertained.”
He dropped his weapons to the floor and slowly made his way toward me. Pierson stepped into his path, stopping him momentarily. The two had a silent conversation, staring at one another before Kierson nodded once in agreement to whatever message Pierson had relayed to him. Picking up his pace as he neared me, Kierson’s arms spread wide. The second I was within reach, he snatched me up tightly, crushing my body into his embrace and smothering me with his chest.
His heart beat wildly.
“Don’t ever make me think something happened to you again,” he whispered, his breath tickling the top of my head. “I could not survive your loss. None of us could.”
I felt as though my arms had taken on a life of their own as they drifted up, unaideded s weap, to the small of his back. They wanted to comfort him. The gesture felt alien to me, as did the sentiment that drove it, and they stopped just shy of their goal, slowly sinking back down to my sides. For the first time in my life, or at least the life I could remember, I had wanted to hold another as they held me.
“I will not cause you to worry again,” I said, my words muffled by his body. “But you would survive my loss, Kierson, as would the others, because it is part of who you are. The strong go on. The weak perish.”
“You,” he said with a growl as he pushed me far enough away from his body to see my face, “are not weak.” He looked around at the other faces in the room, seeking their confirmation of his assessment. Much to my surprise, they appeared to agree.
Then Kierson’s gaze fell upon Oz, whose expression was completely devoid of emotion.
“You saved her.” His words were not a question but an accusation, his tone conflicted. It was more than apparent that my death would have caused Kierson inescapable pain, but to be in Oz’s debt yet again appeared to weigh on him more than even he likely expected it to.
“She had been saving herself just fine until she lost all sense and practically delivered herself to the Stealer who’s currently decorating this room.” Oz’s eyes quickly fell on Pierson. “Want to explain how that asshat got in here in the first place?” he sneered. “I thought your high-and-mighty self had this place on magical lockdown.” Pierson’s expression soured, but he did not respond. “I won’t ask twice,” Oz growled.
With a heavy sigh, Pierson answered his question.
“He got in here because the house was not warded against his kind.”
The silence in the room was oppressive as my other brothers and Oz stared at Pierson incredulously.
“What do you mean ‘not warded against his kind’?” Oz rumbled, stepping toward Pierson, who did nothing to retreat.
“Simply put, the house was not warded against Stealers. And why should it have been? They were no longer,” he offered in his defense, though none appeared to be accepting his reasoning. “Magic takes energy to maintain and comes at a cost. There was no logic in spending that which I have so little of on something that posed no threat.”
“But that’s exactly who we needed to protect her from,” Kierson cried, a sense of sadness and disbelief in his tone. He revered his twin—possibly envied him. For Pierson to have fallen so short of his expectations was just shy of inconceivable to him.
“A fact that has only recently been brought to my attention, Kierson,” Pierson countered, his mask of superiority intact, but wavering slightly. “Had I known that they were a present threat before this evening, I would have taken the appropriate measures to fortify the wards.”
His response, though reasonable, did little to appease Kierson, who was still on edge from the scene he had walked in on moments earlier.
“Pierson is not to blame, Kierson,” I said softly. “It is illogical to protect against something that you know to no longer exist. I would have made that same oversight had it been my responsibility to guard the house and those in it.” I looked across the room to Pierson. He would not meet my gaze. “Had there been a way to know that the Stealers had reemerged, then blame could be cast his direction. Since there was not, no guilt should fall upon him.”
At my words, Pierson slowly turned his eyes to mine. For the first time, they held something other than arrogance ann at shoud wisdom.
“Which brings about the bigger issue here, that somehow those fuckers managed to not only re-create themselves but also multiply like rabbits right under our noses,” Kierson observed. “I think it’s now abundantly clear that the rogue Breather I found the other night wasn’t the first one to slip up. That’s the only way for the Stealers to have been reborn. And somehow I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is all occurring around the same time as Khara’s arrival here. I mean . . . they had that picture of her . . .” His eyes narrowed slightly as he came to his final deduction. “And why do I have the sneaking suspicion that we didn’t face the full force of the Stealers tonight? We couldn’t possibly be that lucky. If I’m right, just how screwed are we?” Kierson’s expression was grim while he spoke. Behind it was a story. “I mean . . . last time, we had all the others . . .”
“Yeah,” Casey barked, cutting him off. “And they’re dead now. We’re the ones that survived the war. We can handle this.”
“You’ve done a bang-up job of handling them up until now, haven’t you, Casey? Aren’t you the great and mighty tracker? The one who can sense the dead?” Kierson, fueled by fear and rage, stuck his face directly into Casey’s as he spewed forth accusations. “The Stealers showed up on your watch, Casey, and they almost killed Khara. How well did you deal with that?”
“I will deal with it now,” he replied, stepping closer to Kierson, whose hands were drawn back, ready to throw the first punch.
“Enough!” Drew roared. “Neither of you move!” Like trained pets, they obeyed his command—frozen in place, only inches from one another. “We’re not going to be especially helpful to Khara, or anyone in this city for that matter, if we don’t stop fighting amongst ourselves and start figuring out just what the fuck happened tonight and how we’re going to fix it.” His eyes were glowing with anger as he stalked around the room. “Can you two get it together enough to focus on the task at hand?” he asked, his anger still palpable. Kierson quickly agreed, and, in true form, Casey took his time to respond. Once Drew appeared confident that they could behave, he released them. “Now, Casey, is it possible for the Stealers to have been here long without you finding them?”
“No,” Casey rumbled. “No way.”
“Good, so that means this is something new . . . a new development. With any luck, they haven’t been able to amass numbers that are outside of our ability to eradicate.”
“That’s a ITAL statement there, Casey,” Oz drawled from his perch on the stairs where he sat. I had nearly failed to notice he was there. “You’re really willing to make that assumption based on your skills alone?”
“What the fuck do you care?” Casey spat.
“I don’t,” he replied, his eyes firmly fixed on my brother. “It’s just an observation.”
“Yeah, well, you can shove your observations up your ass. We don’t need your help.”
“And yet you did, just tonight, in fact.”
“About that,” Drew interjected, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What was so important that you called me in the middle of the night—during your prime mating hours—to see where we were? What we were doing?” He moved slowly toward Oz, his thoughts made plain by the scowl on his face. “You made sure to check on Khara’s whereabouts as well. Care to tell me why?”
It was Oz’s turn to harden his stare, training it on Drew while he remained e hthesilent.
“Son of a bitch,” Casey roared. “You knew. You knew about them, and that’s what you came to tell us. That’s why you were concerned enough to drop whatever ass you were hitting and run over to the fucking Heidelberg Project. You knew they were after her.”
“Yes. I knew,” Oz muttered, slowly uncurling his body to stand on the staircase before us all.
“How?” Casey asked, his voice so low it was virtually inaudible. “How could you possibly have known?”
“I think the question you would be better suited to ask here, Casey, is, ‘How could you possibly have known when I did not?’” Casey slowly drew his favored blade from the harness across his chest, making a show of it as he did. “That would be unwise,” Oz cautioned. “For several reasons, not the least of which is that you need me.”
“Why?” Drew asked, doing nothing to stop Casey this time as he slowly stalked toward Oz. “Why do we need you?”
“To find them.” Oz’s cavalier attitude only enraged Casey further.
“The dead call to me!” Casey snarled, lunging for Oz. Seeing the inevitable, Drew halted him with his words, once again leaving Casey only a breath away from his target, straining against the command that held him so firmly in place.
“The dead may in fact call to you, Casey, but you know as well as I do that your proximity to them limits that ability. Unless you are close enough to feel their presence, or there is a veritable army of them, they go undetected.” Oz leaned forward slightly, taunting Casey further. “They were practically in your lap before you felt them tonight, weren’t they?”
Unborn Page 19