Staked!

by Candace Wondrak

  “You do not,” the man spoke, with a voice that was all too familiar. It was the first time I’d heard him speak, in the visions.

  His leather-bound hands fiddled with the leather diary. My eyes were glued to it as he continued, “You try to fool yourself that you love me. A Demon like you can never love, regardless of how you wish to.”

  “You and I.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “We were unlike anything I had ever experienced. You were different…and so was I. We belong together.”

  “Silence!” the man yelled, cutting her off. “The only thing that we belong to now is God.” He flipped through the pages of the diary. “This must be destroyed, along with…” The man paused as he glanced over his shoulder.

  That was weird. He paused, acting as though he heard something. I didn’t hear anything. Then again, I wasn’t a Daywalker, so my hearing could be considered poor compared to theirs.

  With my back to the woman on the cross, I watched for any other signs of life. An old-fashioned Crixis flashed in front of me, creating a whirlwind of wind that whipped my hair around like it was nothing. I took a sharp breath in as I spun on my heel to face the hooded man.

  But he was gone.

  I tried piecing it together as this vision melted in with a previous one. Crixis and the woman exchanged some words, and Crixis reached down to pull out the diary. That diary. That diary. I knew I’d seen it before, but where?

  Where had I…

  Oh, my God.

  The torn corners. The huge binding. The brown leather. The golden lock.

  No. No way. I refused to believe this. There must be a mistake. There was no way that this was the same journal that Michael had in his library. No way. It was impossible…wasn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Kass

  “Kass?” Claire’s voice rung through my head, not thoroughly registering until she said my name again. “Kass? Hello, is anyone in there?” She pretended to knock on her own head, acting as if it were mine.

  “What? Yeah, sorry…what did you say?” I stared at her worried face over the physics textbook.

  “I asked you what I’m going to do about Max,” Claire filled me in to the talk I had been spacing out through.

  “What do you mean?” I bit the end of my pencil. Sure, it was gross, but I needed to decrease my tension level, and biting my pencil was the only thing I could do now. Unless there were any Nightwalkers roaming the school, but I doubted that.

  “I need to tell him about me,” Claire squealed. Seriously. She squealed. She must really like Max. “I want Max to know…” She paused as Mr. Straum strolled in and searched for something. “…the pull of gravity is about nine point eight meters per second, but usually, we round it up to ten so it’s easier to…” When the annoying teacher left, she said, “Max needs to know what I am. How am I going to tell him?”

  Shrugging, I thought hard. Not about her and Max, though. About the whole diary situation. “I, uh, don’t know. Tell him at the football game tomorrow night.”

  “With all those people around?” Claire was incredulous of my proposal.

  “Sure,” I quickly came up with reasons why telling Max at the game would be a good idea, “no one will be paying attention to you and Max. They’ll be busy watching the game.”

  Claire weighed the options. “True.”

  “I mean, don’t yell it at the top of your lungs,” I added, “you don’t want to advertise it. Just casually work it into the conversation.”

  Her blue eyes were urgent and needy. “How am I going to do that? All that I normally talk about at the football games are the plays and the referees and…”

  The fingertips of my hand touched her arm. “Claire, it’ll be fine. Stop worrying about it.” I wished I could do that about the diary, but it wasn’t that simple. “Just don’t think about it and you’ll be fine. Let it happen naturally.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” I said, wondering if I should sneak into Michael’s library in the middle of the night to see if I could find the diary. Maybe it wasn’t even there. Old books tended to look the same.

  “What if he freaks?” Claire nervously tugged at the back of her hair.

  “He won’t. He’ll be happy,” I reassured her. “He thinks you’re normal now and that you guys can’t go out because of that. Once he finds out that you’re not normal, he’ll—” I froze as Claire lightly hit my arm.

  “My God,” she exclaimed. “You talked to him about me? What’s wrong with you?”

  My eyebrows furrowed. “You told me to.”

  “Oh, man.” She dug her face into her athletic hands. “Now he’s going to think that I like him…why’d you go and do that?”

  I was so confused. Didn’t she like him? Why did it matter if he knew? “But you—”

  “Just because I tell you to do something doesn’t mean you do it! What am I—”

  “Claire.” I crossed my legs, looking like a therapist in the process. “Calm down. It’ll be okay. At least we know that Max would date you if he didn’t think he was putting you in danger by doing it. He also thinks you’re pretty, funny, smart…” I trailed off when Claire’s expression changed to absolute bliss.

  “Max said all that?” I nodded. “To you?” I nodded once more. “Yesterday?” Again with the nodding. “I can’t believe it.”

  “But…” I held up a finger, trying to be serious but failing, “Max did live in Cleveland and his other Guardian got shot, so he might have some issues.”

  “I think we all do,” Claire spoke honestly.

  The bell cut through my response, which was “Definitely.”

  There were way too many teenagers in the cafeteria in my opinion, and unfortunately, my opinion meant nothing. I knew somehow this was a gigantic health hazard waiting to happen. Or an apocalypse. We moved here because it was supposedly filled with Demons and supernatural beings, and so far, that proved true.

  Almost no one I’d met here was normal. Witches, Daywalkers, Shifters, Morphers, Sorcerers, other Purifiers.

  I stopped my thoughts when I saw Gabriel appear at the opposite end of the cafeteria, making his way to our table.

  As Gabriel sat down beside me, I whispered something across the table to Max, who nodded in agreement. Having this dork in our group wasn’t so bad after all. Max motioned to Gabriel’s huge bag, saying, “Got any apple pie in there that you would care to share?” The nerdy kid chuckled to himself as he hi-fived me.

  Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Think that’s funny, do you?” His blue eyes stared through me. “I got something even better. Hey, Kass, did you ever find out where Koath was last night?”

  I took one look at the boy’s smirk and wanted to tackle him. “No,” I growled, baring my teeth a little bit, like a rabid animal. Gabriel knew Koath’s no-show to the church was bugging me beyond belief, and yet he went ahead and said that.

  “What?” He peered at my upset face. “Did I strike a nerve? Push your buttons? Tell you something you didn’t want to hear? Good. You practically begged for that one.” Gabriel turned his attention back to his lunch.

  I counted to three to calm my anger down, otherwise I’d just go full out and break his nose again. For the twentieth time. When the majority of it subsided, I said to anyone who would answer, “Who’s going to the football game tomorrow night?” I bit into my sandwich to hide the smile that formed.

  Claire looked like she wanted to kill me. Oh, well. She’d get over it. Eventually.

  Everyone was silent, making me feel very ill at ease. Did I say something wrong?

  Gabriel eyed me up. “Don’t we always go to the games?”

  “Yeah,” I spoke the word slowly, hating that it was true.

  “Then why bother asking?”

  “What’s with the attitude?” I hissed back to one of the most immature people I knew.

  “Attitude?” Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have an attitude. I don’t even know
what that means.”

  “Liar.” I lifted my finger to his face.

  “Get that finger out of my face.”

  At the same time, I said, “I will not get this finger out of your face.”

  “If you don’t get that finger out of my face, I’ll…” Gabriel stopped and glared at me. His blue eyes were intense, letting me know that he was serious about the finger-in-his-face thing.

  “Huh? You’ll what?” I asked, keeping my finger an inch away from his face.

  “I’ll bite it,” he answered me, ignoring the laughing and jeering that came from the other side of the lunch table and probably figuring that Claire and Max’s time would come soon enough.

  “You wouldn’t,” I tested him.

  Without a second thought, his mouth made a swift dash to my finger and his abnormally white teeth clamped down on my poor, defenseless digit.

  I shrieked as I used my other hand to shove the monster Gabriel away, concurrently yanking my finger out of his mouth. “You bit me. You really bit me.” I was shocked at the immaturity of it all.

  Shrugging it off, he went back to his lunch as if nothing happened. “I told you I would.”

  I muttered something under my breath, including the phrases I hate you and you’re stupid, and also a colorful collection of swearwords, because as of now, Gabriel was stupid and I did hate him, and my anger needed to be calmed by using some cusses that, if heard by any teacher, would have gotten me expelled for a good week, at least.

  But hey, maybe that would have been a good thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Gabriel

  I twirled my dragon sword on the green grass, taking in the way the silver reflected the color perfectly. I was waiting patiently for my turn to fight Raphael. I was going to enjoy it a little too much. The pie fiasco was forefront in my mind.

  Max stirred next to me. He was sword-less, so he was stuck reading old books every time we trained with them unless Raphael gave him his own sword to practice with. Today was not one of those days.

  My back hit the stone wall of the church. Max had it so good, he didn’t even know it. Him and Claire were great for each other; they each had a secret of their own, but they would come out to one another. And, as far as I knew, there were no uncanny, older, priest-outfit wearing men that were digging Claire as much as Max was.

  Me? I wasn’t so lucky. I had one of those uncanny, older, priest-outfit wearing men that dug Kass almost as much as me. And I said almost because no one could beat me in that department.

  No one else seemed to recognize it, but I did. Oh, I did. But the thing that I wondered was if Kass noticed it. Odds were that she was as clueless as everyone else, but what if she wasn’t? What if she knew Raphael liked her?

  And worse—what if she liked him back?

  Sure, Raphael, to the opposite gender, would be considered attractive, but so was I.

  I was never one for relationships after what happened with the first girl. Almost getting fed to her pet Demons was a good enough sign for me to stay away from lasting relationships. I almost got Kass killed three years ago because of it.

  So far Raphael hadn’t almost gotten anyone killed, yet. Things might change, but chances were that they weren’t going to any time soon. Still, just because he hadn’t caused any near-death experiences didn’t make him better for Kass than me.

  From now on I was going to be the biggest pain in the rear to Raphael.

  Footsteps broke my deep concentration. His green-eyed stare fell on me as he said, “Max, take this and practice with Kass.”

  That was another thing. He started out calling her Kassandra. What was with him calling her Kass lately? That was for me, Michael, Koath, and basically everyone else in the world but him. He shouldn’t call her Kass. That was too familiar. He should be more formal with her.

  Max shut the two-thousand-page book and set it on the ground. He took the sword and left. Raphael glared down at me. If I was anything less than what I was, it would have gotten to me. Good thing I was awesome and had a huge ego to match, and I was modest enough to admit it.

  I glanced up at the man I despised most. “What do you want?” I spat the words out as if I were talking to Crixis himself, the Demon I despised most.

  Raphael motioned his head as he clenched his jaw and furthered the distance between us and Max and Kass. I stood and followed him, clutching my sword and not letting it go for anything.

  “What I want,” he said slowly, with a twinge of resentment, “is to know why you have been acting like this recently. First you glare at me all the time, then the pie incident that happened last night, now this.”

  “Cut the crap,” I told him simply, “we both know that last night wasn’t about pie.”

  “It wasn’t?” He played the oblivious card. But he was too smart for that, and I knew it.

  “I know. No one else does.” I pointed my thumb at my chest, saying, “But I do.”

  “And what is it that you think you know?” Raphael squinted his eyes.

  I laughed curtly. If it wasn’t for his abnormal strength, I could take him down. He was about six inches smaller than me with a lot less muscle tissue. In reality it shouldn’t be much of a fight. But underneath his average physique probably lied more muscles per square inch than anyone could guess.

  “Give up the act.”

  His head lifted, meeting my determined stare with one of his own. “What act?”

  Stepping closer, I whispered, “I know your secret. I see the way you look at her. It’s obvious.”

  “Interesting” was all he said.

  “You’re not denying it.”

  “I did not,” Raphael said slowly, “but I also did not affirm it, either.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Raphael.” I grunted, “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you. Weren’t you the one who met me in Starbucks and gave me advice on her?”

  “Ah.” Raphael smiled a superior smile, asking, “So you did understand what I was talking about.”

  “Don’t change the subject.” I shoved my fingertips roughly on his chest, saying, “You knew then that I liked her, and now…now, what? You just don’t care? I know we’re not best buds, but that does violate the man code.”

  His lips curled into half a smile. “I told you to not wait forever, did I not?”

  “Yeah,” I got in his face, saying, “last time I checked, forever hasn’t passed yet.”

  “I told you to not wait until it was too late.”

  I was slow to say, “It’s not too late.”

  “If you are confident with the way things are with her, then you should have nothing to worry about, especially with me. Am I right, Gabriel?” Raphael crossed his arms, looking stern. Very controversial coming from him.

  “Right. Just know that I’m watching you. And if you do anything to her…” I leaned down to his face to get a better scary effect, “I’ll end you in a heartbeat.” And leaving it at that, I walked away as awesomely as I could under the circumstances, just to let him know that I was serious about the whole I’ll-kill-you part.

  I hoped I was as badass as dream Gabriel was.

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Raphael

  As Kass kept busy with her work with the broken altar, I sat on my bed in the back room and sighed. The talk with Gabriel did not go as I expected it to. His threat hung heavily on me, more than it should. I’d never act on any impulses I had for Kass. There was that one time in the house, but I liked to believe that I’d recovered and grown from that incident.

  He said I was obvious, but I didn’t believe him. It was easy for a man to see other men in love with his woman when he himself already head over heels. If I was obvious to anyone else, including Kass, they were all quiet about it.

  Gabriel yelled at me. He scolded me. I still couldn’t believe that part. He acted as if he were the adult and I was the child. He thought he was higher on the playing field, but he was not. If anything, we were on the same level.

  I did understand where he came
from, though I did not respect the way he said it. I knew he’d been fond of her since before I met them, and that’s why I gave him that advice all those weeks ago. When I said that he shouldn’t wait forever to tell her, I meant it. Of course, I didn’t have ulterior motives. I hadn’t said it as a warning that I would swoop in and take her. Even thinking it, it was wrong.

  What was amusing, though, was Gabriel saying that if I hurt or did anything to her, he’d kill me. What a laugh. That boy was too foolish to know what he was messing with. I bit my tongue and held in what I wanted to say back.

  The same goes for you was what I would have said. I didn’t say it because it was indecent and unnecessary. I knew Gabriel would never hurt her, just as I wouldn’t, but he didn’t know that about me. He trusted me as if I were John turned good again. I was much better than he gave me credit for.

  There was a pit in my stomach, a dilemma, though. Half of me wanted her all to myself; she pulled me in like no other. The dark side of me, the side I always kept in check. But the other half was more reasonable, saying that we could never be together, and that Gabriel was the better one for her.

  It wasn’t up for discussion. I wasn’t going to let the dark feelings inside me grow. I’d allowed my heart to open up once and look how it turned out. I wasn’t about to do it again, regardless of how oddly alluring Kassandra was.

  Time, time that usually passed so slowly for me, flew by when I was with her. I didn’t care about anything except her. I had no worries, no regrets, no anything. It was a beautiful thing to feel. And regardless of how crazy or cliché it sounded, I’d never felt anything like it before.

  Which begged the question of her origins. I’d been around dozens of Purifiers. Countless humans. None drew me in quite like she did. None came close.

  Was she indeed human, or was she something more?