Raphael set his jaw, replying, “He did things that no ordinary human could possibly do.”
“Such as?” Michael inquired, initiating a questioning glance from me.
“Such as,” Crixis growled, “throwing Raphael back with his mind, forcing Sephira to heed his demands, and holding her back like she was the human.” There was no trace of anything but malice in his voice as he zipped up his pants. “It’s astounding.”
Even though Crixis was telling the truth, I had trouble believing him. Michael, conversely, was having no problems with trusting the man that, until recently, we had thought was the worst evil we would ever face. Considering Kass was on the grass, so fresh her body was still warm, he acted too interested in Gabriel and his frenzy.
When I came to America with Taiton, I knew he’d changed. It was now that I was finally opening my eyes to the fact that maybe Michael hadn’t changed for the better.
Maybe he changed for the worse.
Chapter Forty-Three – Kass
I plunged into nothingness for the longest time. And I didn’t know about you, but to me, feeling nothing was one of the most terrible feelings. Ever. The emptiness was so consuming that I completely forgot what led up to this.
As my body and my mind sank deeper into the realms of oblivion, tingling sensations crawled from my neck, calling to mind the feeling of Sephira’s hands and the sound of my own neck snap.
Oh, yeah. That’s what happened.
But if that were true, and that’s what happened, then why was I aware of the nothingness? Why were there tiny, almost overlookable stings on my neck? How could I conceivably feel anything if I was dead?
My eyelids felt like stone, and I couldn’t force them open for the life of me. Which, apparently, I didn’t have much of, so go figure. The feeling of a drop of water rose from my cheek, causing me to wonder just what was going on.
“Open your eyes,” a familiar voice spoke to me.
Somehow my thoughts materialized into words, “I can’t.”
“You can,” the voice urged.
Digging deep inside, I found the strength to slowly and painfully lift my unbearably heavy eyelids. I was momentarily stunned by the whiteness of the space I was in.
It was white, as in pure white.
I’d never seen anything or anyplace this white.
Sitting up, I held my head. It seemed that getting your neck snapped gave you a terrible headache that, in pain terms, was comparable to the beatings Crixis had given me all these years.
And, yes, I meant all of them, as in all the beatings put together.
I moved my legs to find that I was situated on top of a platform-like thing. It blended in perfectly with its white surroundings, which was why I failed to distinguish the two. My feet met with the snow-white ground, and I struggled to stay upright.
My balance was also off. Way off.
Minutes passed by, and I had to grip the slab to hold myself up. Walking after being killed by a psychopath was harder than it looked, and it looked impossible.
I mentally hit myself. All the signs were there. My mother and the Prophet had told me that I was going to die, and that it was unavoidable. My mother told me time and time again, to the point where I assumed it was nothing. She even went so far as to show me what I was going to see, feel and hear when I die, and I still ignored it.
What was my problem? Why didn’t I listen?
Shaking my head, I looked around and shortly froze. I knew that voice was familiar. Standing before me in a white garment that was nearly the same color as everything else, holding his hands behind his back and smiling like a proud father, was Koath.
“Kass.” His goateed face winkled in a warmer smile.
Not caring if I fell a million times before I reached him, I broke free from my support and ran to him. My legs wobbled, but I made it. I made it and embraced him in a hug that would practically strangle anyone else.
“Koath—” I caught the mistake and corrected myself. “—Dad.” The word felt strange as I spoke it, but once it was out there…it felt nice. I would go so far as to say it felt normal.
“I’m so sorry,” Koath muttered in my hair, squeezing me harder in the bear hug we were in. “I should have been there with you during this whole thing.” I opened my mouth to respond, but he continued, “Honey, I hope you know that your mother and I love you, and we never meant for any of this to happen.”
Tilting my face upward, I stared into his wizened eyes. What was he talking about?
His hand ran over my head a few times as his caring eyes broke away. “Your destiny was predetermined.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, slightly pushing myself out of the hug.
Koath carried on, “The world needs you to be where you are.”
But I’m dead.
That’s what I wanted to yell, but I refused to scream at my father. On normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have thought twice, but since we were both, for lack of a better word, dead, I decided against it.
“That is why you’re going back.” Koath’s smile became soft, saddening me instantly.
I wasn’t sure I understood. “Going back?”
“You must go back. And, I know you’re used to hearing it by now, but the fate of the world depends on you. You may not realize it yet, but you soon will. He needs you. The world needs you.”
“Who?” I asked Koath.
But it was too late. Koath was gone.
Chapter Forty-Four – Gabriel
Sephira shook with animalistic laughter. If she truly thought she was going to be the winner, the victor, then she had another thing coming. There was no way she was going to make it out of this fight alive.
The ground pounded as another made his way to me. I didn’t have to look to know it was Taiton. Or, more accurately, Taiton’s body. His blank eyes, his automatic movements, his emotionless expression.
He was undeniably dead. Just as Kass was. The only difference with him was that I couldn’t care less. I only cared about her, and now she was gone. This Original was going to pay. But first I was going to rid the world of Taiton’s spiritless body.
“Stop,” I commanded, holding up my tattooed hand to the dark man.
Taiton’s body listened. If there was a soul in there, any semblance of one, his eyes would widen in anticipation and fear of what was to come, but since there was nothing of the sort, he vacantly watched me.
I slowly stepped closer.
There may not have been a soul or a spirit in his body, but his heart still pumped. I could hear it. I could feel it. Sephira used ancient magic to reanimate him. A shame such flawless work was nothing when standing against me.
All one had to do to defeat the soulless Taiton was take out the power source.
Using speed that was unfathomable to the naked eye, my hand landed inside his chest. Breaking through the ribs proved all too easy for me. A jerk tore the still-beating heart out of his ribcage.
The heart’s pumping slowed to a stop in the palm of my hand. His eyes regained their usual iris and pupil seconds before the wind forced the giant, lifeless body to the ground. Taiton’s frame was so great that the earth shook in response to the immense fall.
The pathetic Demon before me tilted her bald head and snarled. What once was an ugly woman hiding her actual self was now a hideous unisex Demon. There was not a single detail that called to the fact that this thing was once a female.
“Prepare to meet the true death,” I whispered, dropping the heart and appearing shortly behind her. My movement was too fast for her Vampire mind to comprehend. When she began to realize where I was, she tried to spin around, but I held her in place by gripping her spinal cord.
Blood flowed from her back, crawling up my arm and hardening into a protective outer layer. Feeling the blood slither across my chest and down my opposite arm, I set my free hand on the side of her head and waited.
Sephira was mere seconds away from dying…but once she was dealt with, I wasn’t sure if
I could stop. There was the teeniest, tiniest feeling growing inside me that I would never stop, never feel anything but rage and hate because the only thing I wanted…no, needed was gone.
Kass was gone, and I was on an unstoppable warpath.
Once the blood had stabilized on my second hand, I breathed in. The blood on my hand near her head hardened and morphed into a shape of a blade as my other hand jerked out a large portion of her spine. The blood blade went straight through her head. It was no normal weapon. It was a part of me, and I was something so much greater than she.
Sephira, no matter how strong she thought she was, was no match for me.
Blood from her cranium splattered my face when I withdrew the winding blade back into my wrist. Like a marionette that lost its puppeteer, the mutilated Sephira collapsed on the bloodstained grass, her body an empty shell.
A little ways away, debating voices called my attention, causing me to grip the spinal cord tighter. Before I was aware of what I was doing, I materialized beside my old friends and enemies. The lines between them were blurry; I could no longer distinguish between friend and foe.
Because I no longer cared.
Michael was silent as he watched me lift the gruesome bone. Raphael moved not a muscle. Crixis saw the vertebrae in my hand and smirked. Liz widened her eyes in fear. A rough snarl escaped me, for they were sitting far too close to Kass.
They were all going to perish by my hand. Darkness had no favorites.
Out of the blue, I felt whole again. The darkness inside me faded and seemed to grow into a bright light. My rage was quickly replaced by calmness, and I felt no more need to destroy. Somehow I knew everything was going to be okay.
Detecting a faint breath beneath me, I dropped the bone while falling to my knees. “Kass,” I exhaled her name fluidly as the hardened blood melted to its regular state and slid off my arms. Impossible. She was gone only ten minutes ago. How was this possible?
I moved her floppy body to my lap, ignoring the rest of the group and their corresponding gasps and wild looks to each other. None of them mattered to me. The only one who would ever matter was right here, in my arms…where she always should be.
Kass parted her dried lips slightly, attempting to speak my name.
A lump rose in my throat.
Her beautiful eyes slowly drew open as she hesitantly reached a hand to her neck.
It was obvious she didn’t understand what was happening either. But I didn’t need to know why this was happening, because I didn’t care. All I cared about was Kass, and now she was back. She was alive. She stared up at me with her mesmerizing eyes.
I gradually moved my hand to her neck, gliding it beneath hers. Focusing all my intent on relieving what pain she felt, I tried to make her feel better. How I did that, though, I couldn’t tell you.
Instinct, I guessed. Godly instinct.
The look in her eyes told me exactly what her mind was, reminding me that I had something I needed to tell her. “Kass, I—”
She stopped me short of my declaration by setting one hand on my face and the other around my back. A low sigh left her as she nestled her way into the space between my neck and shoulder.
I could definitely get used to this. Actually, it was all I ever wanted.
Chapter Forty-Five – Kass
I knew Gabriel wanted to say something, but I stopped him by burrowing into the refuge of his huge frame and bodily muscles. After the whole dying thing, I just needed to be near him. I needed to know he was okay.
And he had to know that I was okay.
Besides, deep down there was a part of me that knew exactly what he was going to say. The only problem with what he was about to proclaim was that I didn’t want to hear it now. Not with everyone around.
I was so tired. My neck hurt.
The pricks of his stubble on the side of my face caused me to open my eyes and stare at him. There was something different in his deep blue eyes, and I could barely tell what it was. A new, shadowy glint was hiding behind his eyes, but there was also something else…something purer.
Gabriel’s forehead leaned against mine, touching our noses and giving me the butterflies.
A small smile spread across my face when I said, “Your hair.”
“What?” He grinned in response. “Don’t tell me it’s polka-dotted now.”
“It’s not.” My hands fell to his chest, and I was thankful that he was cradling me enough that I didn’t need to prop myself up. All I had to do was relax in Gabriel’s arms…which, apparently, was harder to do than I would like to believe.
Who would have thought that being this close to him while everyone else was a few feet away would be so tough to endure?
I blamed those stupid butterflies.
Gabriel hugged me closer, if it was possible. And yep, it was. “It’s not all black or white, is it?” Despite my closeness, I was able to watch him lift a single eyebrow.
Giggling, I quickly answered, “No. It looks like you went to a salon, but I think it’s—” I didn’t want to finish that sentence because I was afraid of where it might lead. Well, I decided, too late to turn back now. “—nice.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s what you were going to say,” Gabriel spoke slyly, an enormous smile creating two dimples on his cheeks.
“You know what I was going to say.”
“I still want you to say it,” he cut through my nearly incoherent babbled response.
Biting my lip, I averted my eyes. While I was bashfully looking away, my eyes spotted something that was different, other than his hair. For a split-second, a millisecond at best, there was a lot of light gathering behind Gabriel…in the form of two, white wings.
As soon as I snapped my eyes back to do a double-take, the light was gone, as were the wings.
The strange thing was that I was the only one who saw it, because no one spoke up. No one asked any questions about the abnormal amount of weirdly-shaped light behind Gabriel. Basically, they kept doing what they were doing before: staring at the two teenagers who were forced to grow up way too fast.
A loud commotion broke the seriousness of the air around us as Max clumsily ran to us, gripping the metal stake and yelling, “Where is she? I’ll purify her before she can…” He used a shaking finger to push his glasses farther up his nose, the way Michael always did. He then pointed to the macabre bones resting beside Gabriel. “Is that…”
Gabriel’s eyes fell to the spinal column as he said, “Yes.” He was in the process of bringing his gaze back up to the nerdy redhead when Max fell to the ground.
The question remained: did Max faint because he had a concussion, or because he didn’t have the stomach to see a blood-soaked, tendon-ridden, irregularly-shaped spine?
Turned out, after a big boss fight, everyone’s starved. So what did we do? Michael ordered some pizza, Max called Claire to tell her the good news, and Liz arranged for the bodies of both Sephira and Taiton to be picked up by members of the Council.
I could only assume that the same people who took Koath’s body would show up to collect the new ones, minus Cleo, of course, because she was as dead as a doornail. Deader, even. Normally, if you’re as dead as a doornail, there’s still a body to be found. That wasn’t the case with Cleo; that’s what I was told.
It was a good thing our neighbors on this side of the street weren’t exactly close-by, and that woods butted up against the back of our house.
The furniture in the living room was pushed to the sides of the room, and we all lounged on pillows and sleeping bags. It was like we were one, big, happy family.
In an odd way, I supposed we were one, big, happy family.
Excluding Crixis. That should go without saying, really. He wasn’t part of the family, and he never would be. It was a good thing the Daywalker wasn’t even here; otherwise I’d have a bone to pick with him.
It was his fault I died, after all.
Everyone was in such a happy mood that we might have let him stay (t
emporarily) if he didn’t have errands to run. And by errands, I meant people to probably kill. At least, that’s what I imagined his errands were.
It wasn’t like he had to go to the grocery store to pick up some milk and bread.
Liz laughed, sounding thankful. “I know we all didn’t make it, God rest Taiton’s soul, but I’m beyond thrilled that we survived, that we managed to beat Sephira.” Her small hand found its way into Michael’s.
“From what I hear,” Max guzzled some carbonated beverage we had in the fridge, “it wasn’t so much us as it was Gabriel.” His beady eyes met with Gabriel, who immediately hi-fived him in response.
“Amen to that, brother,” the blonde boy joked. His handsome expression became fatally humorless. “I’ll take thank-yous in the forms of checks, cash, weapons, and sexual favors.”
Michael sharply coughed, Max almost spit out his Dr. Pepper, and Liz crinkled her eyebrows, saying, “Dear Lord!”
Was I seriously the only one here who wasn’t surprised in the least by that comment?
Gabriel was hasty to continue, “The last one from just Kass, obviously.” His blue eyes winked, causing the heat to rise to my face.
“Technically,” Max was the first who gambled to talk, “they wouldn’t be considered favors if both parties want it.”
Gabriel outstretched an arm and gently punched him, saying, “Dude, I’m loving you right now, because that’s so true and we all know it.” His drop-dead face turned to me, showing me that he was completely serious.
Just like I knew he was.
Once the room’s raucous laughter, whether it was disgustful or agreeable, quieted down, I realized someone was missing. And no, I didn’t mean Crixis.
I meant Raphael.
Partially against my better judgment, because of Gabriel’s jealousy, I asked, “Where’s Raphael?” The irrelevant chatter in the room ceased instantly as everyone came to the same epiphany I did.
Michael’s eyes met mine when he said, “I don’t know. I didn’t realize he wasn’t here.”
The Nightwalkers Saga: Books 1 - 7 Page 104