I think this Raphael needed to simmer down before I put him down.
Chapter Four – Gabriel
“That man is a bucketful of sunshine, ain’t he?” I asked, glancing to my side to view Kass huffing and puffing. Grinning, I added, “I don’t think he likes me too much, and I have no idea why.”
“Really?” Kass abruptly halted in the middle of the sidewalk that would eventually disappear and lead to our house. In the dim moonlight, I was able to discern the anger in her green-eyed stare. “You really have no idea why Raphael hated your guts after two seconds?”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I tilted my head to accommodate the height difference between us and chuckled. “Kass, I have some news for you. He hates you just as much as he hates me.” My mouth dropped in offense as she violently shoved a finger in my chest. For such a tiny girl, she had a hell of a lot of hidden strength.
“Because of you.”
I rubbed the injured spot on my chest and replied, “He doesn’t have a sense of humor…” My voice trailed off when Kass rose her brown eyebrows. “What? Is there something wrong with my face? Am I getting a pimple or something?” I lost my seriousness in a wide, silly grin.
I just couldn’t help myself sometimes.
“You know what?” Kass spoke with a tone of astonishment, like she was seeing me for the first time. And to that, it’s about damn time. I knew she couldn’t resist me forever. Sadly, those triumphant thoughts of mine were dashed as she continued, “There is something wrong with your face. You got a whole lot of ass—” She lifted her hand, gesturing a large circle around it. “—right there.”
Though she was entirely serious in that stab at my ego, I laughed it off as we started walking again. The humid night air slapped my skin constantly, but it was a good warm, a comfortable warm. With a sigh, I slowly said, “You’re awfully mean to me sometimes, Kass, and it hurts my feelings.”
“It hurts your feelings?” she echoed with a mock and a jeer.
“My manly feelings,” I corrected myself. “When will you face the fact that you’re hopelessly in love with me?” That question caused Kass to stop walking once more. I, however, kept up the pace while staring back at her. “Did I say something to upset you?”
She saw through my feigned innocence straight away, narrowing her gaze and replying, “You know, it was cute when you were little and said that, but now? Now I think you’ve lost your mind.”
Nodding, I spoke while she ignored me, “Yep. I lost that when I was, what, seven?”
“What boy, on the cusp of his eighteenth birthday, says those things? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what adult content you’ll buy?” Kass carried on, throwing her hands up in the air. “Isn’t that what normal boys do?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Haven’t we had this discussion before? We both aren’t normal, never will be. Can’t contain our freakish abnormality.” I chuckled to myself, realizing that my birthday was indeed coming up. I was getting older and older as the days went by, wasn’t I?
A train full of baggage and worries entered my mind, stopping only when every part of me was thoroughly afraid for the future. What would happen to me on that day? Would Michael kick me out and keep Kass? Where would I go? I couldn’t…I couldn’t leave Michael and Kass. They were my family, the only family I’d ever known.
I was lucky as it was, because Purifiers rarely made it to adulthood. As a rule, we ran into danger wherever we went, and we tended to lend to short lives. But, somehow, Kass and I were still here, alive and kicking.
And I planned on keeping it that way.
We already had one too many run-ins with death and all the crap it brought. Three years ago. It hadn’t ended well, and I thought I was going to lose the best thing in my life. That day, and the weeks that followed, were eye-opening, to say the least.
But, if that was true, why hadn’t I done what I promised myself I would?
Chapter Five – Kass
As we entered the house, Michael waited for us in the living room. Setting the daily newspaper down on his lap, the Englishman asked with a curious smile, “How did it go?” It was blatantly obvious that he wanted Raphael, Gabriel and I to get along swimmingly.
Well, wasn’t he in for quite the shocker?
“Terrible,” I mumbled, collapsing on the couch next to Michael.
“I thought it went rather well. He even offered to take us out for frozen yogurt. Apparently there’s one of those places around here. I cannot believe you didn’t tell me. I would have been there every day, Michael, every day,” Gabriel said with a stretch of his arms. After he was finished showing off his biceps, the blonde sat on me.
And let me say that Gabriel weighed…a lot. Let’s leave it at that.
I struggled, trying to push him off me. Unfortunately for my body and my lungs, it didn’t work. Giving up, I wisped, “Don’t listen to him. There was no talk of frozen yogurt. After tonight, I don’t think he’s going to be nice to us for a long time.”
“What? Why? I’m somewhat confused as to how—” Michael seemed truly surprised.
“And I’m somewhat confused that you’re somewhat confused.” Gabriel lifted himself, allowing me to nudge my way out. “Blame Kass. She daydreamed during the whole test and came up with this silly yet adorable fantasy about how we—”
I laughed. “Don’t listen to him. It was his fantasy about our wedding.”
“Oh. You know what? You’re right.” Gabriel acted thoughtful.
Michael shook his head and ignored the boy’s antics, asking me, “What happened, Kass?” Before I answered, he adjusted his glasses.
“Well…” I leaned back on the pillow, enjoying the recline and plushness of it. It was one soft and fuzzy pillow. I could fall asleep right here, right now. “Raphael sent us to find a Nightwalker, one that hadn’t even risen yet, and according to him, we didn’t do a perfect job—”
“We?” Gabriel interjected, nearly shouting it out. “What false things you say. I did everything. Kass here was the one who talked nonstop about our wedding theme. Star Wars, by the way.” He patted my head.
I slapped his hand away. After all, I wasn’t a dog and didn’t deserve to be treated like one. The day I let Gabriel pet me would be the day I was dead. I only hoped that day wouldn’t be too soon. Not a thing a teenage girl wanted to think about.
“I find that hard to believe. Wasn’t it you who was talking about those movies this morning during breakfast?” Michael’s head swayed to one side as he gave Gabriel the hairy eyeball. He knew the truth. He always knew the truth. Michael was the least gullible person.
And Gabriel had put that to the test many times.
With a smirk, Gabriel shrugged his broad shoulders and set his hand on my leg. While I swatted it away, he said, “Ah. What can I say? You now know of my secret fascination.” His chest rumbled with a chuckle as I growled when he set his hand farther up my leg, precariously near my thigh.
He was asking for a beat down.
“Well, make sure to get on his good side.” Michael unfolded the newspaper back to the front page with a deep sigh.
“Why?” Gabriel and I asked in unison.
Sometimes I thought we shared the same mind…and other times I wondered how we lived in the same house without one of us ending up murdered silently in the middle of the night.
“Because.” There was a long pause as Michael heaved a heavy sigh. “When your school day is finished, you are to report there, after you are dropped off here by the bus and set your school bags down, that is.” His statement was met with only silence, which prompted him even further, “Raphael will be expanding your knowledge of all things Demonic and supernatural, and training you both in advanced combat tactics against a variety of creatures. In short, he will be your new teacher.”
Gabriel and I met eyes, each of us wondering: what the freaking hell? “I thought we were done with that kind of stuff,” I whined as I tore my stare from the blonde and landed it on Michael. I was not ha
ppy with him.
And to think that after Koath left to go to England, I thought that I would be finished with training, done with mentors, and I could live on my own. If only I’d known. The Council handed me over to Michael, who had been busy training Gabriel. It wasn’t like they were strangers to me; I knew them both for the whole of my life. It was just that I had so longed for some time on my own, with no teacher looking over my shoulder while I purified.
The freedom that would bring…and I wanted that freedom.
I wouldn’t know that freedom, not for a while, because now I had to have yet another teacher. One who didn’t seem to like me at all. Yay.
“There is always something one can learn. And I do believe you both are going to need every lesson. Look.” Michael handed me the newspaper, which was folded seamlessly on the front page. “There was an attack. It was credited to an animal, but we know better, don’t we?”
Once again we spoke in unison, saying, “Nightwalkers.”
I quickly scanned the article. The headline read: Vicious Animal Strikes Again. Not exactly the most creative title. But the title didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was the content, if what Michael said was true. I kept reading, soon wishing I hadn’t.
“Oh, no,” I was barely able to say.
“Yes. It is precisely as you gather. Judging by the bite marks on the bodies, a group of Nightwalkers killed a whole family and left their corpses for the authorities to find.” Michael’s tone turned everything beyond somber, if it was possible.
Gabriel yanked the paper from me, asking, “There are pictures?”
“No,” Michael replied instantly. “It was in the police reports. And, before you ask another foolish question, I hacked into their system. It was the first thing I did after moving into this house.” His lips curved into a grin, breaking the seriousness of the room.
The blonde, though, was content to grab the fleeing seriousness by the neck and ju-jitsu it into submission, bringing it back. “But this article says that the youngest son is still missing, and hoped to be alive,” Gabriel read straight from the paper.
“That is what the city thinks. They think the boy managed to run off and hide,” Michael stated sadly. “They also think this is all due to an animal, but we know the truth. That boy is dead.” A flash of grief crossed his eyes.
“Then why would they take his body? If they were done with it, they had no more use for it.” I sounded cold. It was like I was used to little eight-year-old kids being murdered by Nightwalkers. That was something you couldn’t ever get used to.
Dead civilians. It’s terrible.
And it’s also something we Purifiers had to avoid at all cost.
“I know.” Michael rested his head on his hands, thinking. It was a few moments before he said anything. “I have a wonder…” And with that, he stood up and left, leaving Gabriel and I in absolute silence.
When he had disappeared up the nearby stairs, Gabriel muttered, “Thanks for including us on that one, Michael.” Two dimples indented on his handsome face as he turned to me, saying, “Now that we’re alone...”
I sharply stood and smacked the back of his head, saying, “Heck no.”
The shower was hot and it felt so good. I swore I could stand here forever. I’d be the girl who couldn’t be moved from her shower. Alas, that would be a little weird. And it would also mean that I couldn’t catch those wicked Nightwalkers. I still couldn’t believe that article. That poor family. That poor boy.
I sighed as I took a step out, grabbing my towel as I turned the faucet off. The cold air that met with my bare body was almost enough to make me want to get back in and take another long shower. It might relax me, or it might give me more time to worry. Wrapping the towel firmly around me, I wiped the fog off the mirror.
Something wasn’t right. An uneasy sensation coursed throughout me, fraying my nerves and making my breath short. Too short.
Feeling anxious, like something was behind me, I spun around. The slippery floor lent itself to a sloppy turn, causing me to tumble and fall straight on my butt. It hurt more than it should have, but only because my butt was so boney. I naturally winced even though I was used pain, my eyes closing.
This feeling…I’d felt it before. Once. Years ago. A memory I tried my hardest to forget.
Slowly I opened my gaze to the bathroom floor. However, I wasn’t looking at the grout or the tile. I looked at someone’s feet. Someone’s bloody feet.
I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed with fear, strange enough as it sounded. You would think that I was used to fear by now, since I was so used to pain.
That’s because I was. Me and fear were like best buddies, friends for life, never to leave each other until one of us died. The fear I felt on a daily basis was eternal. Out of the two of us, fear would long outlast me and my pathetically short lifespan.
But this, this was different. This feeling was something that I’d only experienced once before. Something inside myself was telling me that, whatever this thing was, it was evil. Pure evil. Eviler than anything I had ever purified.
So evil that, if I had to fight this thing now, I would lose. In about two seconds.
“Kass…”
Ah crap. Crap on a spatula.
This thing knew my name. How? And for that matter, how’d it get into the house, past Gabriel and Michael? How did it sneak into the bathroom without me hearing? I had no idea, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask it. I didn’t think it’d be too chatty.
There was only one way out of this, one thing I could do. Fight till the end, right? That’s my motto. Even if I had to do it in a towel. And besides, I couldn’t have said a word, because I couldn’t exactly breathe.
A sharp, stinging pain surfaced on my cheek, and I closed my eyes forcefully, not opening them for a while. The creature hadn’t moved a muscle, nor had it repeated my name. Maybe it wasn’t really there. Maybe I was just going insane. That had to be the explanation.
Only it wasn’t, I was pained to admit. It wasn’t the explanation. Not the correct one, anyways. Other than insanity, there was something else wrong with me.
I lost track of time. Seconds passed, and I prepared myself to jump up and attack when Gabriel burst through the door and yelled, “What’s wrong?”
I nearly choked on my empty lungs. I must have forgotten to lock the door. Bad thing to do with a hormonal tool a few steps away.
The blood-covered shoes were somehow gone, completely disappeared. I couldn’t see anything besides the normal bathroom tile. Crap-a-doodle. This definitely wasn’t good.
An intense pain filled my lungs. Make that double crap. My pesky, no-show breath was coming back to me. All at once, too. Wonderful. I was now fully hyperventilating in a towel on the bathroom floor that I shared with Gabriel, and I couldn’t control myself.
Gabriel dropped to his knees and cradled me against him, keeping his hands surprisingly in check. “Hey, calm down. I’m here, Kass, I’m here.” He grabbed my head and stared deep into my eyes. “Slow your breathing. In and out. Slow it down. It’s alright, I’m here. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
I tried slowing my breathing, listening to his calming words, and was once again hugged closer to him. Once I thought my breath was under control, I managed to speak. “Gabriel, I…” I grasped his shirt. “I saw something.”
Gabriel froze. “What did you see, Kass?” He spoke in such soothing tones and cradled me like a baby.
I had the strange urge to fall asleep. Despite the snug feelings I had, I managed to stutter, “I don’t know what it was…” My words stopped as I wondered why I acted like such a baby. Maybe it was on account of the tiredness that suddenly took over my body. Or maybe not. “…but it was bad.”
Today, it seemed as if beneath my Purifier self, I was just a scared little girl.
Screw this town and everyone in it.
“Then how do you know it was bad?”
“I saw feet, and they were covered in blood. And it kne
w my name. I just…I felt it, Gabriel. I felt it.” I was on the verge of shouting at him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them to make him understand the urgency I felt.
But there was a doubt in my mind, a small, tiny thing I thought I had forgotten. Odd, how there were things you wanted to forget with your whole heart, but you just couldn’t do it. There were those pieces, those memories that remained a part of you regardless of how badly you wished otherwise.
“It’s okay, Kass. It wasn’t really here. Your mind was playing tricks on you,” Gabriel spoke, seeming so sure of himself.
I wasn’t as certain, begrudgingly bringing up that day from three years ago, “But remember what happened last time?”
He stood up, and I used him as support. “Last time was…”
“I saved your life, Gabriel,” I reminded him, just in case he forgot.
“By putting your own in danger. Yeah, I remember.”
“If I hadn’t listened to my visions…” My voice trailed off.
“Kass, I know.” He cupped my face, forcing me to look up at him. “Just promise me you’ll tell me if this happens again. If it does, we definitely have a problem on our hands.” The blonde’s deep blue eyes stared holes into mine. “Okay? Promise me.” For someone who could be such a jerk, there were times when he could act like the picture-perfect boy.
I nodded limply, slowly regaining my posture and kickass poise. “I promise.”
“Thanks, babe.” Gabriel kissed my wet head before letting me go, and suddenly his picture-perfectness was gone. “Say, do you want take off that towel and hop in the shower?” A playfully inappropriate smile graced his lips as I glared at him.
“Sorry, Gabriel. Not this time. Catch me when I’m not busy seeing things that aren’t really there, and we’ll see how it goes,” I told him with a grin.
Staked! Page 4