The Nightwalkers Saga: Books 1 - 7

by Candace Wondrak

  Gabriel—I had no problem wearing the shortest shorts and little tank tops around him. Only because I was so comfortable with him. He was like my brother.

  He was like my brother.

  Yeah, maybe if I repeated it enough, it’d start to sound true.

  I was out the door before Michael or Liz could say anything to me. If there’s one thing I was good at, besides purifying Nightwalkers, it was avoiding my problems. Yeah—I was super great at that.

  As I headed down the street, pretending to jog, I was surprised to realize that my arms did, in fact, ache. They throbbed with a familiar tiredness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Sure, Raphael would spar with us (and beat us, usually), but my body was always on the up-and-up the day after. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been as sore as I was now.

  Hmm. Maybe Crixis was onto something, I thought as I turned down the next street. I jogged through backyards until I stood at the back porch of Crixis’s new abode. Or maybe I gave him too much credit, I amended as I stepped toward the back door. It was unlocked, as most probably were in this Carolinian town, in spite of all the death it’d seen.

  Which was a lot, and it showed no signs of slowing down. The death count would just keep ticking higher and higher, definitely keep going up even after I bit the dust.

  I came upon a strange scene as I walked into the house. A smell of bacon and eggs, a humming old man near the kitchen table, and a Crixis with an apron around his waist. A pink, frilly apron. He pretended not to notice me, even though he had to have heard my approach.

  “Ah, there you are, Eve,” Maurice said with a wide smile of his obviously fake teeth. “David’s making breakfast. If there’s one meal that boy knows how to cook, it’s breakfast. He learned from the best.” His wrinkled fingers pointed to himself, a proud aura radiating from him. He resumed humming as he sprinkled some salt and pepper onto his eggs, dipping his toast into it.

  “I never knew David—” I said his name loudly, dramatically. “—was such a good cook.” I shot a glare at Crixis. I was still unsure about the whole lying-to-Maurice thing.

  Crixis turned his head, green eyes glinting in the morning light that shone through the window opposite him. “I’ve had years of practice, dear.” He pointed to the seat across from Maurice. “You’re next.”

  Did I want to eat any food Crixis had a hand in making? That question surged through my head as I begrudgingly sat near Maurice. My fingers tapped the old laminate table top, their beat not matching up to Maurice’s hum.

  “How’s school going for you, Eve?” Maurice’s scratchy voice broke through my pensiveness, causing me to sharply glance to Crixis.

  School? How young were David and Eve when they got together?

  “He’s asking about your college courses,” Crixis clarified. “You know, all your psychology courses. Since you want to be a criminal profiler.”

  The words nearly flew over my head, but I got the gist. Turning to Maurice, who waited patiently for my answer as he bit into a crunchy piece of bacon, I said, “They’re hard. Lot of tests and papers.”

  “You’re smart. You’ll handle it.” Maurice harrumphed. “If only you could’ve gotten David to go to that school with you.” There was a pause before he added quietly, “Then he could’ve gotten a good job, instead of working at K-Mart for his entire life.”

  Crixis and I met eyes. K-Mart? This had to be a while ago. Those stores were all but gone, weren’t they?

  “At least you have a goal, a dream,” the old man continued. “David’s only goal was to get through high school while doing the least amount of work to pass. But, can’t complain. At least he graduated. More than I can say for myself.” His thin shoulders shrugged and he worked to finish his plate.

  My mouth was a thin line. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wasn’t good at talking to strangers, especially older ones. Maybe because I knew that I’d never live to be that old. Heck. I’d already died. Death was sure to catch up to me sometime soon.

  As I rubbed my arms, Crixis set a porcelain plate before me. Despite my feelings about the Demon, the meal looked good. The eggs were perfectly cooked, over-easy, and the toast was a beautiful golden brown. And the bacon—oh, the bacon smelled delicious.

  “Eat up,” Crixis stated with a smirk. “We have a long day ahead of us.”

  I couldn’t help but lift my eyebrows at that one. With my arms feeling like jelly, I highly doubted it’d be a long day. And I never planned to spend the entire day with him, anyways. Spending all my free time with Crixis was not what I wanted to do, even if I was spiraling without Gabriel.

  Oh, Gabriel…

  No. Do not think about him.

  The smell overpowered me, and just as I decided to try the food, Maurice quipped, “You know you guys are old enough to rent a motel room. You don’t have to use the attic.” His seriousness, and the sheer wrongness of it, nearly made me gag.

  Crixis laughed outright. He put a hand on Maurice’s shoulder, kneeling down to his level. “Somebody has to be close by, in case you decide to get wild and call nine-one-one for a friendly conversation again.”

  Maurice shook him off. “I told you, I couldn’t find the remote.”

  As Crixis said something in return, I couldn’t help but laugh. I laughed at everything: the absurdity of Crixis catching Maurice yelling at the dispatcher about the remote, the oddity of the care that Crixis displayed for him, and the strangeness of seeing the Demon I most hate acting like a real person, for once, and not a mindless, murdering psychopath.

  These were strange times, weren’t they?

  I laughed and I laughed, even after the weirdness of it all wore off. I laughed until I was laughing about nothing, until my eyes grew watery and I couldn’t see out of them. I laughed until I realized I was crying.

  Because I was so suddenly sad.

  I’d been through so much in my life, and this was where I ended up? In the house across the street, playing wife or girlfriend or whatever to Crixis? It was stupid.

  “Excuse us,” Crixis said, moving away from Maurice as he went to me, pulling my arm. We went out the back door, and as he firmly closed it behind us, he added, “Please don’t make me play the caring husband when I’m with you.”

  I plopped myself on the top step, gazing out at the green, unkempt backyard. My eyes were mostly dry now; I didn’t want to break down in front of Crixis. He’d never let me live it down. I’d never let myself live it down. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Good.” He sat beside me, far enough away that he wouldn’t touch me. “I assume you’re upset because of your boyfriend?”

  I closed my eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you that Gabriel isn’t my boyfriend?” When he didn’t answer, I said, “Why do you keep calling him that?”

  “It’s obvious. Or at least, it should be. Whether or not you realize it does not matter to me. If you want to live blindly, go ahead. I can’t judge, because that’s how I lived for a very long time.”

  Staring squarely at him, I sneered, “So you aren’t living like that now? Could’ve fooled me.”

  “It is eye-opening to watch the one creature you believed would never die,” Crixis slowly spoke, “for lack of another word, die.” He turned his stare to the yard. “In all my years, and as we both know I’ve had many, I never thought Sephira would truly die. I always knew my fix was temporary. I knew she’d come back and make demands of me again.”

  “But you have that other thing inside of you.”

  “Yes. Vexillion. But even with its backbone, it’s…difficult for me, sometimes. You might’ve seen things, but you don’t know what it was like, losing everything. Losing a father you never really knew is nothing like coming upon your entire village, burned.” Crixis rubbed a hand over his jaw.

  Was he comparing his murdering of Koath to the slaughtering of his village thousands of years ago? Those two things were not comparable, especially since the first could’ve been avoided easily.

  “I
was a father first, a husband second, and a warrior third. They were all taken from me at the same time. Sephira made kingdoms crumble. She set her armies on anyone and anything that she wanted. Not for resources or land, but for her own amusement.”

  “I see that’s where you got it from, then,” I muttered unhappily.

  “It is. I learned cruelty from the best. Or is it worst? Either way, Sephira was a great teacher. If you don’t care about anything, you gain the ability to do whatever you want when you want. Over the years, I used it to my advantage.”

  “It’s a good thing there aren’t that many like you in the world.”

  “Perhaps not, but there are humans who would gladly leave the poor to rot if it meant their pockets were full. Humans have started most of the wars in the history books, usually against other humans.”

  My hands curled into fists. “Hard to see the big picture, when you’re sitting next to me acting smug.”

  “This isn’t my smug face.” Crixis adopted the expression I’d seen when he beat the crap out of me in the graveyard. The one with a lopsided, easy-going smirk, eyes squinted just a bit. “This is my smug face.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “There is.”

  “Looks the same to me.”

  Crixis sighed. “You’re young. You think you know about cruelty, but you don’t. My lessons might’ve been cruel, but they were nowhere near as cruel as Sephira’s would’ve been.”

  I glared at him. I sent my death glare to his Hawaiian shirt-wearing form. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I don’t care if you feel better. I just don’t want your broodiness to rub off on me. I’d rather not turn into Raphael. One Raphael on the earth is already one Raphael too many.” He grinned, a devilishly handsome smile that I hated. “Now there’s a guy who’s great at brooding.”

  “You made him what he is.”

  “No, the Council made him what he is. The Council, and their precious Helio. For a Witch, he was very proper. Didn’t like him.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, staring at the rusted swing set on the far left of the yard. It probably hadn’t seen much use in decades. Weeds sprouted in the grass around it, growing against its metal poles. Left and forgotten, abandoned. “Do you…” I spoke quietly, “Do you miss them?”

  I didn’t have to clarify who they were. Crixis knew right away.

  Beside me, his jaw set, muscles in his forehead tightening. His light eyes clouded over, and for a minute, we sat in silence. It was an incredibly intimate question, but with everything between Crixis and I, formalities and intimacies didn’t matter.

  “If I say no, I would be a liar. If I say yes, I would seem far more caring than what I am.” Crixis scowled. “The truth, Purifier, is that I do not think of them. When faced with eternity, the past is something you cannot dwell on.”

  I didn’t know what I expected from him. Did I want him to admit that he missed his family? Would that make it okay for me to be here, with him, while Gabriel fought for his life in the hospital? Maybe. Or maybe not.

  Maybe I was just grasping at straws.

  “I don’t think I could ever be like that,” I finally said. “I think our pasts are what make us who we are. If we turn our backs on it, what does that make us?” I looked at him again. “My past is not great, thanks to you, a lot of it, but I’d never forget it.” His green eyes dared me to say the final bit, so I did, vehemently: “I’m not that weak.”

  He glowered. “You believe me weak because I prefer not to reminisce about my wife and child who were slaughtered like animals? Do not say things to simply rile me up.”

  Standing, I moved away from him, heading to the rusted swing set that looked as lonely as I felt. “I’m not saying it to rile you up.” I sat on the old swing, hands clinging to the chains covered in plastic. The plastic covering was old and red, cracked in places due to age and weathering. Still, the thing was sturdy. “I’m saying it because that’s what I think,” I added, once Crixis followed me.

  He leaned on the wooden part where the slide was attached, folding his arms across his chest. “You’ve seen a lot of battle and death, but the only thing that could possibly compare to my loss—” Crixis paused. “—would be for you to lose Gabriel.”

  “Well, keep holding that breath, because at this rate, it’s going to happen.” I mentally winced. Why the heck would I go and say something like that?

  “Your cynical attitude is wasted. The boy will wake. His soul is too strong.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I don’t think so, I know it.”

  I looked at him then, wondering something. “Can you feel it?” When he did nothing but stare blankly at me, I clarified: “Can you feel his…soul?” If he was like the other-world Gabriel, shouldn’t all Demons shrink and bow and cower in his presence?

  “In the beginning, no. Years ago, I believed him to be just another Purifier. Until recently, I still held that to be true. But after Sephira snapped that little neck of yours, something inside of him woke. I felt it, then.”

  My death is the catalyst for the end of the world. How stupid. One life shouldn’t matter that much.

  I was slow to ask, “What did you feel?”

  “Confusion, awe, and for the first time in millennia, fear. Even Vexillion felt it. It is difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t feel it. Impossible, really. It’s a primal thing, instinct. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I think I’m old enough to grasp what instincts are.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Enough talk,” Crixis growled. “Let us train.” He started to walk back to the house, and I was on his heel in a second. We walked through the kitchen, past Maurice in the living room, remote in hand, and up the stairs.

  As we crawled into the attic, I hesitantly asked, “What makes me so special? Why would losing me make Gabriel snap and become that thing?”

  That thing. I couldn’t even say it.

  Crixis stopped in his tracks, giving me a long view of his back as he whispered, “I have wondered that myself.” He turned to me, studying me like a scientist would a new species, like something he’d never seen before. “Have you displayed any other powers? Other than your visions.”

  “Besides that and popping up from the dead like a daisy, no.”

  “Koath was human.”

  I glared at him as images pushed into my head, forcing themselves to the forefront, so that I could remember the gruesome scene Crixis had left for me in our house. All the blood. The vacant stare. The shredded neck.

  As if sensing that my hatred for him was growing, he quickly said, “I say it because then, logically, you must get your uniqueness from your mother’s side.”

  “And what would you know about that, hmm?” I baited him, waiting for him to tell me that he killed her too, something I always suspected but never knew for sure.

  Crixis answered me by pointing to the beam, the same beam that gave my fingers blisters and my arm muscles a sore tenderness. “I’ll answer you after your training.”

  It was hard to stop myself from rolling my eyes yet again. As I leapt to the beam and positioned myself the same way as yesterday—and I already felt the burning begin in my hands and arms—I asked, “Why do you want to train me, again?”

  “Shut that talkative mouth of yours and focus,” he hissed, flashing away. When he returned, he held a book in his hands. And it wasn’t a picture book. If he thought I’d last anywhere as long as I did yesterday, he had another thing coming.

  I’d be lucky if I lasted a chapter into that book. And, judging from the thickness of it, it had a lot of chapters.

  Great.

  Chapter Twenty – Liz

  Michael was back at the hospital.

  I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Gabriel was his first charge, his first Purifier, and for him to be slowly taken away due to some unforeseen medical emergency? There was nothing he could’ve done to prepare for
it. Although, as the Council always said, death was necessary. Death was final. Death was unavoidable. It was a part of the Guardian-Purifier relationship. Guardians always outlived their charges.

  A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.

  Michael should’ve prepared for this. Purifier rarely lived past their teens. A hazard of their duty.

  I used to be one for the Council, but now, watching Michael unravel, taking care of Max and trying to take care of Kass, I started to wonder if the Council was wrong, even just by a little. Were they wrong to force these kids to fight? Were they wrong to make them soldiers of goodness and God, with no choice of their own, and force them to forgo their futures? Who knew? Any Purifier could’ve grown up to be the next president or win the Nobel Peace Prize. A Purifier like Max could’ve discovered the cure for cancer, or any other number of diseases.

  Was it right?

  In the past, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would’ve said yes and declared the reasons why. Someone had to do it, and the best way to make soldiers was to start them young.

  But wasn’t starting them young sort of like indoctrination?

  Sighing, I set my head on my hands, hunched over at the kitchen table.

  In the room adjacent to me, Max and Claire sat, talking about school, how it started again in two days. Both were intelligent kids; both were excited to get to their classes again, even though Max had learned most, if not all, of the stuff before.

  And that was yet another thing this town had going for it. A Skinwalker. A Skinwalker in the most literal of sense. It could be anyone by now, though no more bodies were found after the victim in the school. It could wear any face, be any gender, look and talk and sound just like the flesh it wore.

  Skinwalkers were a nasty species. They were hideous, deformed parasites, jumping into the bodies of any animal. Mammals were their favorite, due to their size. The bigger the prey, the longer it could stay inside, the more it could devour before tearing out of its skin-cage and finding another body to consume.

  Skinwalkers as a whole were listed on the Council’s extinct list, stated as no longer a threat to public safety and the welfare of mankind.