I was almost entirely sure that was the woman Crixis wanted us to team up and defeat; two: she was, maybe, more evil than Crixis; three: she was unlike any type of Vampire I’d ever seen or been taught of; and four: I was seriously beginning to wonder if Crixis was right and we needed to unite to take her down.
That was plain old crazy…wasn’t it?
Mentally debating the pros and cons, I walked to Raphael’s room, where Steven and Max still sat and watched Claire. I wished staring at her would make her get better, because if that were true, then I was pretty sure she’d be up and at ‘em.
Steven and Max were only a few feet apart, so I stood between them and set one hand on each of their shoulders. “How is she?” I don’t know why I even asked the question, because I already knew the answer.
Max shook his head, muttering, “Not good.”
Just what I thought.
Steven took the time to turn to me and reply, “Her breathing is slowing to the point where we can barely tell she’s alive.” The back of his white head was now facing me. “I’m going to find Crixis and kill him.”
I squeezed their shoulders one last time before leaving the room and heading back to my own. I had some things to think about, and I needed relative peace and quiet. Also a possible piece of paper that I could physically write down the advantages and disadvantages of working with Crixis.
So far, I had way more negatives than positives. The only positive I had was that it would (hopefully) save Claire. Crixis was her only chance, and that, I supposed, made it worth it.
Crap. What was I going to do? Apparently, I was going to talk with Alyssa, since she stood in my room and looked at the picture I had taken from Koath’s house.
Her soft voice asked, “Is this you?” She pointed to the baby in the picture.
I nodded.
Sitting on my bed, Alyssa looked at me squarely. “A lot has happened since we left, for both you and me. Though, mine are a lot less momentous than yours,” her voice became scarcely audible, “so far.”
So far? I tilted my head, causing some of my unruly hair to fall in my face. “What do you mean?”
A light smile crossed her lips. “Let’s just say that the next time you see us, everything will be changed. But I didn’t come here to talk about us.” Alyssa began to fiddle with a stitch on my comforter. “I came here to talk about you.”
“Me?” Creasing my eyebrows, I couldn’t help but recall the Prophet from the other reality I was stuck in for the longest time. She was exactly like Alyssa, only more powerful. I knew it was only a matter of time before Alyssa unlocked her true Witch capacities.
“Well,” she corrected herself, “you and Gabriel.”
“Oh-kay,” I made the word a long one, because I honestly had no response to that.
“You’ve gone through a lot recently, haven’t you?” Her kind, brown eyes bore into me, searching for something. “I just want you to make sure that your emotions don’t affect the decisions you will have to make.”
“What do you mean?” I couldn’t believe this. Alyssa was lecturing me? Ridiculous.
“I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to tell you that the easiest decisions are not always the best ones.” There was a short pause. “Sometimes it’s the tough ones that are the best way to go.”
Awkward me had a moment when I faked an obvious phony laugh and said, “You think I’m going to have to make hard decisions?”
Alyssa smiled softly. “We all have to make hard decisions.”
Nibbling the edge of my lip, I sighed because I knew she was right. Hard decisions were a part of life, whether you liked it or not. With my life and occupation, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. “I know. Sometimes I wish that things were normal. Then everything would be all right.”
“Kass,” Alyssa said, serious, “if things were normal, you wouldn’t be able to separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.”
“That would be fine with me,” I was quick to say.
Her black, curly hair flailed around her head when she shook it. “That’s not true.”
“Alyssa,” I began, knowing exactly where I was taking this talk, “you have no idea what I’ve gone through since you left. Things have gone from bad to worse, and they aren’t looking up for the better. They never will. My life, assuming I survive this, is always going to be filled with pain, solitude and death. I’ll take ordinary over extraordinary any time.”
“Soon you’ll realize that’s simply not true.” Alyssa brought her hands to her pocket. Suddenly she hugged me, and I just stood there like a lump and took it.
I was so over all this hugging.
Chapter Nineteen – Michael
It took me hours to get here, but I finally had some time alone. My door was locked, and I sat in an armchair with Koath’s laptop. It had taken me some time, five hours to be exact, to find the deleted files and translate them.
My training had paid off.
I scrolled to the oldest document and opened it.
Today was the day. Truthfully, I was a bit scared, but I was calmed almost immediately when we saw them interact. This was the first time they met, and my wife’s instincts were right. Though he is only a small child, perhaps only a few months older than Kassie, it is obvious that he gravitates toward her. The moment we set her down in front of him, we could see his blue eyes light up. He may be too young to be aware of why he is drawn to my daughter, but he is drawn to her nonetheless.
While I am excited by this development, my love is not. She is worried of what this means. Though the future remains uncertain, as it always does, she fears that our daughter’s life will be full of turmoil and chaos because of her bloodline. I do not necessarily agree with her suspicions, but it is unsettling to think about. I do not wish Kassie to find any amount of harm in her life, but I believe God has a plan for all of us, starting with the two children.
Fixing my glasses, I sighed. This was…almost exactly what I anticipated I’d find, minus the mentioning of the boy’s name. Anyone would assume it was Gabriel, but I needed to be one hundred and ten percent sure that it was him before doing anything rash.
I needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the other child was Gabriel, so for the next few hours, I went through and read every, single document Koath ever wrote. Not one stated the boy’s name.
I couldn’t decipher if Koath neglected to say his name purposefully, or if by some chance, it was all accidental. Koath was a smart man, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he avoided the boy’s name entirely, just in case someone ever got a hold of his laptop and went through it.
My hope was nearly gone, until I found a document, one that I hadn’t read yet, titled Hope? How ironic. I was seconds away from double clicking it when there was a rhythm of knocks on my door.
Closing the laptop, I hastily searched the room for a safe spot, one where no one would think to look. Too bad I didn’t have any trap doors built in the house. Something like that would have come in handy more times than not around here.
Figuring I was running out of time, I stashed the laptop under my pillow and sprinted to the door, unlocking it and opening it to see Elizabeth’s puzzled face looking up at me.
“What were you doing in here, Michael?”
I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.
Her serious face broke into a laugh. “I’m only teasing you, dear.”
Thank God. “Is something wrong?” I almost hit myself over the head after saying that one. Besides having Kass’s dying friend in Raphael’s room, Crixis after Kass, and Elizabeth and Taiton watching our every move, what else could possibly be wrong?
“Not…exactly,” she was measured in saying. “Kass wants to have a meeting.”
“A meeting?” I repeated the words as if I didn’t understand their meaning. “What for?”
“I don’t know. When I asked her, she said to wait and see. Come on.” Her fingers intertwined with mine. “Let’s go downstairs. I’m sure you want to get
the bottom of this just like I do.”
Chapter Twenty – Kass
I headed to Gabriel’s room to fetch the boy and bring him down for the meeting we needed to have. I never called meetings. It felt weird to call the shots.
Walking around Taiton’s huge frame, I hit Gabriel’s closed bedroom door once before walking in. Huh…maybe I should have given him more warning. The boy might be doing something he might not want me to see.
He was a teenage boy, after all.
Luckily, he was doing nothing of the sort, only flipping through some magazine. My head beckoned for him to follow me as I said, “Come downstairs. There’s something I need to talk to everyone about.”
He got to his feet, towering over me like the Eiffel Tower. “I’ll go, but I want to know one thing first: do you ever give me false compliments to feed my fragile male ego? If so, I cannot believe you would do something like that to me. If not, what’s wrong with you? You know I’m a man, and therefore I need a false compliment every now and then.”
My mouth curled into an unbelieving smile. Gabriel was outrageous sometimes, and this was definitely one of those times. “Just go downstairs in the living room,” I told him.
Ten pairs of eyes watched me, expectedly, and each pair never blinked. At least, I didn’t see them blink. It was as if their open eyes were permanently glued to me, and they couldn’t blink even if they wanted to.
“Okay.” I rubbed my hands together. “Hi.” Who have thought that I was terrible at public speaking when I was going to propose something insanely unreasonable and stupid?
Speaking at my father’s funeral? No problem. Compared to this, that was nothing.
“What is this about?” Max was the first to speak up. “If this isn’t serious, then I’d like to get back to Claire’s side. I’m sure Steven would agree with me.” His beady little eyes glanced to Steven for approval.
“It’s about Claire,” I said before Steven had the chance to speak his mind. That statement seemed to silence everybody pretty good. “And it’s going to sound a bit out there, and that’s because it is, but I think that it’s our only option—”
“What are you talking about?” Michael cut in, eyes critical. “We’ve been through the entire library and the Internet multiple times. The unhappy truth is that there’s no cure.”
Steven glared at Michael using his brown eyes as flying daggers. “If Kass has an idea, I’d be glad to hear it. It’s better than giving up all hope.”
“Michael knows that,” Liz defended him while placing a hand on his knee. “He’s just trying to get everyone to face the fact—”
“The fact that Claire’s almost dead?” Max adjusted his bug-eyed glasses. “Yes. I think we all know that by now.” The little red-head certainly had a temper, didn’t he?
Like a scene from a TV show, the whole room broke out into a verbal war. I stood in shocked awe as Michael and Liz argued with Max and Steven, Gabriel threatened John and Raphael, John and Raphael threatened Gabriel, and Rain and Alyssa supported both Gabriel and John, but ignored Raphael completely.
Out of the whole room, only Taiton and I were silent.
After a few minutes of heated debate, Gabriel stood from his position on the couch and said loudly, “For God’s sake, let’s hear Kass out.” The room became deathly quiet. “It’s probably something totally ridiculous, like bartering with Crixis to see if he knows a cure, but still. We should listen to her.” He collapsed back onto the couch, pointed at John, said “I hate you,” looked at Raphael and said “And I despise you.”
“Okay, thanks Gabriel. I, uh, appreciate that…” I fidgeted with my hands, wondering how I should say this. “Does anyone know what time it is?” Gabriel coughed, making me realize that I had a watch on my wrist. “Oh, right. It’s two-forty-eight, so we have twelve minutes to decide—”
Why did I wait until the last freaking minute?
“Decide what?” Michael questioned. “What could there possibly be to decide?”
“Give her some time and I’m sure she’ll tell you,” Alyssa snapped at him, startling everyone in the room. The quiet Alyssa hardly existed anymore.
“It’s funny that you should mention Crixis.” I received some really nasty looks. “Because he came to me in a dream last night.”
Raphael spoke, “So that’s why you wanted to see the list of Demons he’s devoured.”
Gabriel’s blue eyes widened. “And that’s why you were asking for Raphael this morning. You were looking for some book. Don’t know why I thought it was an early-morning booty-call.”
“Shut up,” I yelled at the top of my lungs, halting the fighting match that I knew was headed this way. “Just listen to me, please. Crixis told me there was a cure, and that he would help her if—”
“He cannot be trusted,” Taiton declared, karate chopping the air in front of him.
“But what if it’s true?” Max panicked at the thought. “It would make sense. He went after her because he knew he could use her to his advantage. He knew we’d go to him—”
“Weren’t you listening to her?” Gabriel raised a hand in my direction, throwing an icy stare at the red head. “She said he came to her. She didn’t go to him in a dream. Wait a minute. Nothing happened in this dream between you and him, did it? Because, if so, we will have to take you to therapy, and there’s another name on my list...”
The feeling of Crixis’s lips on mine surfaced, and I pushed it away. That was the last thing I needed to think about.
The blonde boy glanced at me, eyebrows furrowing, and I hoped he wasn’t reading my thoughts.
I ignored the multiple dirty looks I received as the room broke out into utter chaos again. I said, mostly to myself, “We don’t have time for this…” The only one that was paying any attention to me stared me down with his hazel eyes.
Raphael directed a single inquiry to me, “What does he want in exchange?”
Gabriel jumped up, getting between the path of Raphael’s stare and me. “He didn’t ask for your life, did he? I’m sorry, but you mean too much to us. We wouldn’t trade you for Claire—” Max and Steven mumbled their own responses, causing Gabriel to send death glares in their direction.
“He asked for our help,” I spoke the strange words quietly, reminding myself of the old Alyssa in the process.
“Help?” Michael repeated, sounding flabbergasted. “You’ve got to be bloody insane.”
Taiton shook his head, saying, “We do not aid the enemy.”
“I agree,” Liz was quick to say.
“You’ve seen all that he’s done,” Steven shouted across the room, standing. “He’s tried killing you how many times? And you want to help him? What makes you so sure that he won’t go back on his word and kill you after you agree?”
“You didn’t see his face,” I was instantaneously cut off by Gabriel.
His blue eyes were past the point of being critical. They were just downright condemning. “How could you even think of this as an option, Kass?”
Frantically, I glimpsed at the clock on the mantle. We were running out of time. Ah, correction: Claire was running out of time.
Raphael was the last sane person in the room. “What did he want help with, Kass?”
I shook my head, replying, “All he said was that we need to unite and take her down.”
Gabriel lifted his hand. “See? What’d I tell you? That’s preposterous and vague. That could mean literally anything.” The rest of the room, minus Raphael, nodded in swift agreement. They weren’t even giving me a chance.
“No,” Raphael spoke forcefully, shutting everyone up, “this could mean only one thing.”
When he failed to go on, Gabriel prodded, “Well? What does it mean?”
It was a few, impossibly long seconds before Raphael answered, “It means that someone is trying to bring back his maker, and if they succeed, we’re all doomed.”
The room entered a state of deep silence. Doomed? It wasn’t as if we hadn’t heard that b
efore. There were multiple occasions of which we were doomed. Being doomed on a regular basis was just part of the job.
Gabriel shifted in his seat. “And the big deal is?”
“The big deal?” Raphael was startled by his question. The guy’s been around us long enough that by now he should know the word doomed was as frequently used as like was by regular teenagers.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, stopping Raphael from making any other ridiculous comments. “So what, Captain Obvious? Thanks for telling me the sky’s blue and the grass is green, Skipper. Tell me something I don’t know, like how the platypus is a mammal and lays eggs.”
Raphael’s jaw set, creating a tension in his face that I wished I could have stopped from forming. “We cannot let this happen.” He shook his head.
Hopefully to help flustered Raphael out, I decided to ask him, “What do you know about his maker?” I knew all about her. More than I wanted to, anyways. Maybe if the rest of them heard what she was like, they’d agree to help Crixis.
Disclaimer: I did not want to help Crixis, but I knew that if we did, he’d heal Claire. That was my priority right now, not anything else. If we had to team up to take down an ancient, big bad evil, then it was just another day’s work. And after that day’s work, we’d get rid of Crixis for good.
I hoped.
His eyes clouded over as he spoke, “She is a first-generation Vampire, meaning she is unlike anything any of you have ever faced.” Well that explained the whole nail-growing and ear-sharpening thing. “She has more power than any of the newer generations. I have heard tales of her, and they rival with those deeds committed by Crixis over the centuries.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Liz muttered under her breath before asking, “Where has she been all this time, hidden in a bleeding cave?”
A shrug was her answer. “I cannot say for sure,” Raphael glanced at me, “I only know that the way Crixis dealt with her was merely a temporary solution. I believe this time he wants to team up because he wishes to find something more—”
“Permanent,” John whispered.
The Nightwalkers Saga: Books 1 - 7 Page 96