Death Before Dawn

by Amelia Hutchins

  John turned to Azrael, and grabbed Azrael’s forearm, as if to drive his point home, but cried out as everyone else took a big step backwards. A collective gasp spread across the group. John screamed as he hugged himself around his waist and coughed violently. My heart sped up, and nausea rose to the back of my throat as what was happening played out.

  I watched from the hallway as John gasped, spit blood, and screamed as if he was being torn apart from the inside out. I screamed a warning as black spider veins webbed over his face. Every pair of eyes in the room—other than John’s, whose eyes seeped blood—looked at me. I stepped back, turned, and ran back to the bedroom, because what the fuck!

  I started piling furniture against the door. I heard a knock and pushed the couch against the door, then the vanity, and then, of course, the wall art, because every pound counted. I saw Azrael rip the hatch of a tank off yesterday like it was a cap of a soda bottle; how much easier would it be for him to get through my pathetic barricade? I paced the room; my mind raced and yet John continued to scream in pain. The sound echoed through the house. They were all watching him die! What sick fucking freak reality had I just entered into? I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

  I hadn’t waited around to see what happened, because hello, a motherfucking virus wiped out most of the world. Were they out of their ever-loving minds? They weren’t afraid? They didn’t seem to be afraid.

  “Emma,” Azrael called from the other side of the door.

  Even though his tone was calm, I jumped, turned towards the door, and felt my stomach flip. John had touched him, and then John had spewed blood, everywhere! He’d touched Azrael and started to die! You couldn’t do that in reality, and yet, he had! Did he knowingly allow John to touch him, knowing he’d die? No. It had moved faster than any disease I’d ever seen, and we’d seen a lot of it while watching the cameras my father installed. We’d watched the CDC bring people in, and days later they were dead. They carried them out and burned them near another set of cameras that had been installed just outside of Newport.

  Days. Not minutes. John had gone silent, which my guess was that his silence meant he’d died. He’d gone from healthy to the end stage of the virus in less than five minutes.

  The door knob turned and I watched it, biting my nails as I tried to do the math for what the fuck had just happened. Many of the inhabitants of the bunker had been crowded in a circle around Azrael and John, watching silently as he’d writhed in agony and died. Sick as fuck motherfuckers.

  Who willingly watched another human die, and didn’t even try to help him? Better question, how the fuck had Azrael done it? The door moved and I continued pacing, ignoring it. I was trapped. Sure, I could hide in the bathroom, but he’d probably only knock down that door too, like some sort of sexy Hulk. Pictures fell, crashed to the floor and shattered. I heard him cussing, but just laughed nervously. I had just turned towards the door when he shouldered it, and everything crashed in front of me. I turned on my heel, ignoring him as I resumed pacing.

  “Emma, look at me,” he demanded, but I ignored him. My brain wasn’t processing what my eyes had told me. That was probably because it was impossible, and yet, according to my eyes, it had happened. “Emma!” he snapped and grabbed my arm but I screamed and pulled it away from him. He recoiled as if I’d hit him.

  I calmed my breathing and shook my head. “Not fucking possible,” I whispered. “It’s just not. It can’t be, right?” I chewed my lip until I tasted blood. I was trembling, freezing. I felt as if I was going into shock. “You can’t just touch someone and kill them.”

  “Emma, sit down,” he urged, and I pulled away from him, yet again.

  “Don’t touch me,” I cried, and backed up against the wall. I’d seen some strange shit since the virus started and spread, but this? This was among the few things that my brain wouldn’t compute. It was listed right under finding a half-eaten woman in a tent. At least then my anger had worked, and I’d fixed it. Finding healthy people killed or slaughtered, I’d dealt with that too, but this? How the hell was I supposed to accept it?

  “When they arrive at the bunker, the first thing they are told is not to touch me. Ever,” he said, his voice soft and full of regret as he sat on the bed. “The armor isn’t necessarily to protect me; it’s to protect them.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Emma, sit down for a minute,” he ordered, and I crossed my arms, looked at him with a chilling glare that dared him to try and demand anything from me. “Anyone I touch dies.”

  My stomach flipped, my heart raced and I shook my head. Impossible. He’d touched…no one since I’d met him, no one but me. I shook my head.

  “Impossible; you touch me, a lot.”

  “Yes,” he nodded slightly, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned over, watching me. “I can touch you.” A thought struck me as if it were lightning.

  “So when you said you kissed me because you wanted to see if I survived…” I stammered out, a note of horror in my voice.

  “I had to be sure it was still true, Emma,” he said softly. “That you were the one promised to me so long ago.”

  “Bullshit,” I snapped.

  “The fact that I can touch only you should tell you that you belong to me,” he growled as he stood up and moved towards me. I backed up until I was against the wall, but the moment he moved to cage me in, I spun and worked my way away from him. “Fine, sit in here and stew, Emma. I have to dispose of what is left of John. When I return, we will finish this. I have to leave tonight, and I’ll not do so until I know that you are aware of what I am.”

  “You’re Death, so go, fly free fucker,” I snapped. “I’ll be here like a caged fucking pet when you get back. Lord knows you can’t keep me here without locking the doors.”

  He stiffened, turned cold eyes on me and paused, expelled a shaky breath and shook his head. “If I let you go, they’d catch you. They’d torture you, and in the end, you’d do whatever she wanted you to; you’re not strong enough to fight her control.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He smiled grimly, bowed, and left the room.

  Chapter 19

  My words had angered him, but I didn’t regret them one little bit. He was holding me here against my will, and yeah, I enjoyed his touch, but I wasn’t some pet he could keep caged. At least, that’s what it felt like. I entered the main living area, and my eyes darted to the locked door as they always did. It was my reminder to myself that I was being held here. I was so used to it being locked that I didn’t realize something was different until the wind that ruffled my hair and tickled my flesh drew my eyes back to it.

  The door was open. I looked around the room, noting each of the cameras pointed at the entrance. I didn’t hesitate, I fucking ran. Barefoot, half-dressed, wearing nothing more than a pair of short shorts, a camisole top, and no weapons, I ran. I flew over the grass as if it burned my feet, running over it until I burst into the woods and stopped.

  Too fucking easy.

  He hadn’t made a mistake yet…

  I turned, looked at the house, and watched as he stepped out from the doorway. He wore a pair of jeans and nothing else. He tilted his head, watching me. He wanted me to run? He looked like a predator as he stood by the door. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and he tipped his head, ever so slightly, like a cougar does before it gives chase to its unfortunate prey.

  Fuck it.

  I turned and took off, running through the thick brush, cutting my feet and my arms as I protected my face against the thick branches. I broke free from the woods and paused. I looked around; my lungs burned, my feet hurt, but the adrenaline rushing through me numbed it all. I turned left, and found an open meadow with a bubbling spring running through it. To the right was the edge of a cliff. I ran towards it, wondering how far of a drop it was.
The cliff dropped down into jagged rocks, preventing entrance to the valley, while making it impossible to leave it from this side as well. The other side was sheer cliff walls that went up at least a few hundred feet.

  I turned to the spring, and slowed down as I made my way towards it. I must have miscalculated when I ran. This way was hopeless if I wanted to escape him. I knelt beside the spring and lifted my eyes to the stars. They were beautiful, and the entire scene was surreal. I sat down at the edge, dipped my feet into the water, and found it warm. A natural hot spring? It felt heavenly against the soles of my sore feet.

  I felt him before I saw him, but he didn’t rush in and force me back to the house; instead he walked over, bent down, and looked at me.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “No. You should have let me go. I don’t want to be around you and your bullshit.” I couldn’t even look at him, so I tried very hard to look at my toes.

  He laughed and sat down, closer to me. “Not quite what I was expecting. Please, tell me why you think I’m full of bullshit?”

  “For starters, you slept with someone else. You told me I was created for you. That you couldn’t touch anyone else, and then you slept with them. After that, you killed John, so there has to be a way to turn it off if you slept with someone else,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  “Did I? Or did I give you a taste of what I felt when you lay with Jaeden?” he countered.

  “I felt it!” I snapped, turning to look at him. He looked worried, and yet strangely at ease.

  “I know; I know exactly how it feels. However, I was never with anyone else. It was a bit of a trick; those kinds of sensations aren’t easy to project, and no, I didn’t touch anyone else. I can’t turn it off, ever,” he murmured sheepishly as he looked at his hands. “I haven’t had sex with anyone since I became a Guardian of Death. Killing those who pleasure me isn’t something I seek out. I don’t know how the connection works; it is more complex than the connection I have with other Sentinels and I never had a chance to speak to the other Guardians about how it works before everything went to shit. I only know that you alone can survive my touch. I know that you were created for me, the rest? It doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve watched you for a very long time. I watched you fall down only to get back up every time, stronger than you were before. I watched you sneak off to a spring just like this one. It’s why I picked this location. Well, it is a strategic location, of course, that, and the stars, and waterfall. It had everything you loved. I am not sure if you ever told anyone else about the stars, but I could feel it as you stared up at them. It was the same with the waterfalls when you’d pass them while training with your father. You’d pause, pretend everything was normal for a moment, and then you’d slip back into warrior mode. You’re a phoenix, but you already know that.”

  “How is it you watched me without me knowing?” I asked, needing to know how I could have missed seeing him.

  “You knew; your heart would race, but you didn’t listen to what it was trying to tell you. You weren’t ready, and maybe you’re still not ready, but I am. I’ve waited lifetimes for the one I’d be able to touch. Before you hate me for what I’ve done, consider what you would do to be able to feel the touch of another human being. I know we’re not exactly human, Emma, but we start out that way. We have the same needs, the same desires, and we need human contact. In taking you, I have saved Jaeden from what you will become, as well. You’re a Guardian of Life, and he’s technically undead. Consider what that would mean for him.”

  He stood up and turned to leave me alone beside the water, and I stopped him.

  “Wait,” I whispered. “Stay with me, please.”

  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t. I also couldn’t weed through the information, or the little bombs he’d just dropped on me, if he left. I watched as he turned slowly, looking at me as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to remain in my company.

  “Or go,” I said. “How do you know I was created for you? I was born, just like everyone else in this world. So how do you know that I alone was created for you?” I swallowed as he slowly sat beside me, slid his feet into the spring, and flexed his toes in the water.

  “Because out of everyone else in this world, it’s you alone who my touch doesn’t kill,” he stated. “I’m not sure why you arrived when you did, but here you are.”

  “You said you were at my mother’s funeral. Why were you there?” I countered, my hackles rising with just how wrong it was for him to have been there. He’d been shadowing me during one of the most turbulent days of my life.

  “I told you that until the virus struck, I tried to be near you every chance I got,” he murmured with a small smile.

  “You mentioned something about seeing me the day I was born?” I asked, and he tipped his head to the side as he considered the past.

  “I had actually been following you since before you were born; not that I knew I was following you at the time,” he admitted with a small chuckle. “To understand what is going on, I think I need to go back a little bit. You and I are part of a prophecy. Death and Life Guardians are only born when the world needs us the most. Death Guardians are born when there is too much of an upswing in the immortal population for the current Sentinels to handle, and Life Guardians are born when a catastrophic event happens that humans may not recover from without our help. Divine intervention, if you will. We are always in mated pairs, sort of what humans refer to as soulmates, just waiting for the bond to be completed. Even though we may be born at different times, we always find each other. I was born in the Sentinel temple that’s located between Bristol and Bath, and I was raised as one of them. When the time came for my trial, the markings for the Guardian of Death appeared and my training to be one of the next Death Guardians began. Not only was I to protect humans from immortals, I was to be a judge and executioner for our own people if the situation warrants it. Much of what I was taught had been passed down from previous Guardians, and most of it was hard to believe. Yes, there was another Death Guardian at the time, but he’s at the temple outside of Rome and let’s just say that we weren’t really able to correspond very well back then.”

  He gave me a wry little smile. “Yes, we can be killed; it’s next to impossible, but it has happened. One flaw with the teachings is they were an indicator of what was coming; they just weren’t clear about when things would happen. Although the markings indicated I would be a Guardian of Death, I didn’t know that my powers wouldn’t manifest fully until they were truly needed, and it lulled me into a false sense that it would never happen,” he said sadly. I leaned my head against his shoulder as he continued.

  “The teachings indicated that the only one I wouldn’t kill with my touch was a Guardian of Life; my counterpart; my mate. Since the only Guardian of Life at the time was already mated, I was going to have a very long wait until there would be another being that I wouldn’t kill with my touch, and the knowledge that the birth of my mate wouldn’t happen until the world would be trying to recover from a catastrophic event was troubling.”

  Azrael tucked me into his side and caressed my hair, lost in his story. “Centuries passed, and disturbing rumors of immortals and a group of Sentinels working together against the mortals we were supposed to protect began surfacing. One of the Sentinels that was rumored to be working against our purpose was based in Newport. I was only supposed to observe and not interfere, at least, not until we discovered how many players were plotting together. So I watched your mother, and on the day she gave birth to you, I followed them to the hospital, hoping that one or more of her partners would come there to check on her. I was in the room next to hers when you were born. Your first breath filled me with something I can’t really explain. I can say that for the first time in centuries, I felt emotions. Before you were born, I felt lost. Unsure of where I was supposed to be, but you
r first cry…it woke me up as if I’d been sleeping most of my life. I felt this intense need to follow your cries, to protect you. I waited for your mother to walk the hallway, but instead of following her as I should have, I slipped into the room and found you. You were this little screaming, red creature. I feared your screaming would bring one of the nurses in to check on you; even I knew babies are not to be left unattended in a hospital. The moment our eyes met, you stopped howling. I am one of the things our people fear the most, and here was this tiny little blue-eyed creature looking up at me with curiosity. No fear, no hate as many others do, but instead, you looked up at me as if you felt the connection as well. They say that our eyes are the portal to our souls and on that day, I believed it for the very first time. Yours allowed me to glimpse the woman who you would become. I saw this woman, one who protected her people against all odds. So there I stood, exposed to my enemies, unable to look away from the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen.” He gave me a tight smile.

  “I am Death, yet you looked up at me as if you knew I was your mate. As if our souls recognized each other. At the time, I wasn’t sure what to believe, but since the moment you drew air into your lungs, I’ve been unable to stay away from you. I wasn’t sure that you were going to be a Guardian then; we weren’t at war, and there was no real threat. You have to understand, the last Guardian of Life was born at a temple outside of Constantinople during some pretty extreme weather events in the sixth century. They were the precursor to a plague that wound up wiping out something like twenty-five million people in a little more than a year, and there was nothing like that going on when I first saw you. Not to mention, you weren’t born in a temple as the rest of us were.”

  “What happened to that Guardian of Life?”