by Jenny McKane
It had been amazing how much faster he’d been with those on, and she hated to think how impossible he’d be to avoid once he removed those completely and began to simulate demon attacks barehanded.
“More.”
He was pushing her to her limits and she could feel herself starting to crack. Her body wasn’t cooperating as quickly when she needed it to move. Mental reactions were slowing as well. During a water break, Eli told her that the more fatigued she got, the harder it would be to think clearly.
That was another massive understatement.
Ten days into their training and Sunny was so fatigued, so foggy brained, that she was a standing punching dummy.
“Enough.”
Eli had called time at Gabriel’s signal. Sunny was on the floor on her hands and knees, struggling to draw a breath in through her constricted lungs. Eli’s pace was brutal that day and she was seeing stars as she struggled to regain control.
“Congratulations.”
Gabriel’s voice cut through the chaos in her mind.
“For what?”
She couldn’t possibly have done anything warranting some congratulations.
“Phase one is done.”
Her confusion must have been evident because Gabriel kneeled beside her.
“This part of your training is done, Sunshine,” he said, a slight smile on his lips. She didn’t hold back her frown.
“But I suck,” she said a little pathetically.
Gabriel just shook his head.
“Untrue,” he said, helping her up. “You were never meant to beat Eli, silly girl. Only to survive some of the worst of his attacks. No demon you are likely to run across will be as highly skilled as he is and when you encounter them, it will likely feel like child’s play.”
“So, I’m done?” Euphoria was starting to settle in. No more drills? No more sparring? Sunny was downright lightheaded with joy. Gabriel laughed at that.
“Hardly,” he said. “You’ve just graduated to the next level, that’s all. You’ve crawled. It’s time to walk. Then, hopefully, you’ll run straight into the portal and rescue your demon.”
Gideon. She’d clung to his name and the image she held of him in her mind to remind herself why she was doing this, because in all honesty, it was 100 percent torture--every last minute of it.
And the bottom line was that she was terrible at it.
Eli had wandered over to her and handed her a green shake, which she’d found herself ingesting lately. They tasted atrocious, but she found that they did aid somewhat in her recovery. Protein, maybe? She forgot what Eli had said made them so beneficial. She only knew that if she held her nose and forced them down, she woke up less sore in the morning and actually had a decent supply of energy throughout her morning and afternoon training sessions.
Eli and Gabriel sat around the dining room table while Sunny finished her shake. Something about the mood was off and she stilled, her eyes darting from man to archangel. Eli looked uncomfortable and wouldn’t meet her gaze. Gabriel’s hands were clenched, as though he were waiting for the right moment to spring something on her.
“What is it?” She wasn’t one to delay bad news. Had something happened? “Why are you guys acting weird?”
Gabriel inhaled slowly and spread his fingers on the table.
“There’s an opportunity we have to make you less vulnerable in the demon realm--in this realm, too, actually, as long as you are interacting with demons and dispatching them with your obsidian blade,” Gabriel said, his voice low.
Eli’s eyes were now firmly fixed on the tablecloth in front of him.
Shit.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “What is it?”
“Very few have done it, but the ones who have were rendered invulnerable to their obsidian blades,” Gabriel continued.
Her blade. It’d been the one gift from Michael she’d ever received, despite the fact that he hadn’t warned her that once she’d killed a demon with it, she was now just as vulnerable to its magic as they were. It was the magic’s balancing act of sorts. The magic could turn a demon to ash with a deadly enough cut, but used against her, it would do the same to her. Gideon hated it when Sunny used it--less because he was afraid he’d be accidentally nicked and more because he was afraid she’d drop it on her foot, stab herself, and turn into dust at her own hand.
“Immune to the obsidian?” she asked.
Gabriel nodded. Eli still wasn’t making eye contact.
“What, Eli? What’s the matter?”
He looked up at her and met her gaze.
“It works, Sunny,” he said. “But the cure is almost as nasty as the poison itself.”
“You’ve done it?”
He nodded at her, but his eyes were troubled.
“Nearly killed me, but now my own obsidian blade isn’t as big of a threat to me when I’m in combat.”
She considered his words and looked at Gabriel.
“Is it some sort of antidote, then?” Gideon had been dumped on their doorstep full of succubus venom and Sunny remembered how hard the recovery had been once Plaxo had given him the cure. It had taken nearly two days to work itself through his system. She’d had a smaller dose of the venom a few days later and when they’d given her the antidote when she was passed out, all she remembered was a burning fever and a roiling stomach that seemed to last forever.
Gabriel shook his head.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s more like building up a resistance to the blade itself. Your body would need to be exposed to the magic in small bits every day.”
She stopped short.
“How?”
Eli swallowed hard and pushed himself back from the table.
“This is a bad idea, Gabriel,” he said, pointing to Sunny. “She’s too small. It would never work.”
“How does it work? How do you become immune to your own obsidian blade?”
Gabriel leveled a stare at her and spoke. His voice emotionless.
“By using the blade on yourself over the course of 30 days.”
Chapter Five
Sleep was evading her. The discussion about using the obsidian blade to develop a tolerance to its poisonous magic had gone on for at least another 45 minutes before Sunny had left the table. Gabriel was obviously for it, as it would provide another level of insurance against failure if it worked. Eli was not so certain it would end in anything but disaster. He was convinced that Sunny was weaker than any other Hunter who had attempted to build up a resistance to their own obsidian blade. He was certain that she would die from the magic’s poisoning within the first few days.
Weighing the pros and the cons, Gabriel had stated that because Sunny was not an advanced fighter, the chances that she would have a mishap with her own blade, or drop it and have it used against her, were much higher.
Eli didn’t think there would be a second day after the first cut of the obsidian blade. He did not think there was anything else to argue about.
“Her body would not be able to stand it, Gabriel,” Eli snapped. He was angry.
Sunny wasn't certain what he had invested in the outcome of this mission, but he was totally against Sunny poisoning herself with her blade.
“Everybody who has underestimated her has been proven wrong,” Gabriel said.
Part of Sunny enjoyed the sideways compliment, but she also knew Gabriel had a lot at stake and that he did not want to lose in this little mission.
“Overestimate her in this situation, and she's dead,” Eli said. “I understand that you have your own mission to accomplish, but you also have her health and well-being to consider. It's your duty.”
“My duty?” Gabriel banged his closed fists on the table. “I don't need you reminding me of my duty, human.”
It was the first time Sunny had witnessed Gabriel lose his composure, even the tiniest bit. He was so calm and collected, even taking on a persona of a laid-back college student. This outburst had her worried.
“The decision is mine, cor
rect?” Sunny asked as she pushed herself out of her chair.
Eli's eyes were back on the table. He refused to look at her.
“It is your decision,” Gabriel said. “I cannot make it for you. But if it is something that you want to do, you'll have to begin in the morning. We don't have much time and, as I stated, it takes at least a month to establish immunity.”
“You're crazy, Gabriel,” Eli growled as he stood. The chair behind him crashed to the floor, and Eli did not stop to right it as he stormed from the room.
Sunny was leaning against the doorframe, her thoughts racing.
“We've only been training together for a little over a week,” she began. “Now, as nice as Eli seems to be, I know that he has not formed a deep emotional attachment to me. So why is he reacting the way he is?”
Gabriel ran his hands through his hair, another obvious sign that he was stressing. It was so unusual to witness this.
“It is Eli's story to tell,” Gabriel said quietly. “But let’s just say that he has seen the consequences of this first hand. It is a loss that he has not gotten over.”
Interesting. When it became clear that Gabriel was finished, Sunny returned to her room. After a shower and a few attempts to get into a new book to take her mind off of everything, she found herself unable to sleep.
What would Gideon do? It was a different question than what would Gideon want her to do. He would not want her to take this risk in the first place and, most likely, the very thought of her poisoning herself with her obsidian blade would infuriate him. He would likely forbid it, as if Sunny were the type to listen to other people's permission.
But would Gideon do something like this for her? He already had. Giving up his own freedom and his own quest for revenge to kill Seumat for her was her answer.
It wasn't some misguided sense of repayment that helped Sunny reach her decision, more like she realized how high the stakes were for everything that they were doing. There was no room for error, and while she would do everything she could not to be harmed, the likelihood that she would suffer a mishap while using her blade was higher than any other Hunter, as Gabriel had stated. Facts were facts. She was still a novice when it came to combat skills.
The myriad of painful days ahead of her were what Sunny had on her mind as she finally drifted into a fitful sleep that night. Her mind had been made up. In the morning, she would have faced whatever was waiting for her knowing that she had made the decision on her own.
*****
To say that Eli had been furious would be putting it mildly. He had actually punched a wall and left a hole in it when Sunny came downstairs the next morning and announced her decision.
“I'm doing it.”
Gabriel had been behind her, pouring a cup of coffee. Eli was drinking another green shake. Without a word, Eli stood and walked from the dining room. Moments later, they heard the sound of his fist breaking the plaster on a wall. Sunny jumped. Gabriel just sighed before yelling after him.
“I'm taking that out of your fee, asshole,” Gabriel yelled. He didn't seem to put out, which eased Sunny's nerves.
“Is he mad at me, too?” She knew it was a lame question, but it's still bugged her. she had not known Eli very long, but the thought of him being mad at her unsettled Sunny.
Gabriel shrugged. “He’s really pissed off at me right now,” he said blandly. “I imagine he's a little perturbed at you as well. But it will pass. Eli is a good man, and he won't hold a grudge long as long as you are successful. I'm pretty sure he would hate you for eternity if you died on his watch.”
They weren't exactly words of comfort, but they worked. Sunny was sticking with her decision.
“We’ll start after lunch,” Gabriel said.
Lunch came entirely too soon, and to top it off, Eli insisted that they still maintain their training schedule. Despite leveling up, Sunny still had a lot of hand-to-hand work to do. Often, the hand-to-hand included using a dummy knife to simulate how she was to deliver death blows to the demons. Unlike the heroines of action movies, who would arrive on scene strapped with massive weapons and incredible skills, it seemed that Sunny's goal was to poke and stab as many little holes in her enemies as possible.
“The death blow that you're hoping for,” Eli began, “the one sweeping movement that will end your enemy it half a second? It isn’t likely to happen.”
Sunny didn't bother to argue with him that she had actually killed two demons that way up to this point. She wasn't sure if he’d believe her, and even if he did, he would probably chalk it up to dumb luck.
So, with her little silicone training knife, Sunny practiced her little stabby movements on the training dummy over and over again. At the end of their session, Eli assumed the role of training dummy. The thought made her snicker, but she wiped her face of the smile at his raised eyebrow. Eli did not look like he was in the mood to be called a dummy, even if she was kidding.
When the session was over, dread began to spread in Sunny's stomach. She could hardly touch her lunch, a simple chicken soup that Eli had prepared for her. His face was grim, and when he told her that he worried that she would lose everything she ate as soon as the obsidian blade cut into her skin, she began to have doubts.
“I hate barfing,” she said mostly to herself.
Eli rolled his eyes at her as he took his spot at the table beside her.
“Throwing up is the least of your concerns right now,” he said.
He hadn’t exactly been jovial in training, but his mood had definitely soured once their session was over. They both knew what was coming next. The night before, Sunny had given Gabriel her knife.
He had asked for it, saying that he wanted to inspect it. He mentioned that obsidian blades were rare, and how Michael had gotten his hands on one that had not been registered intrigued him.
She had just taken another spoonful of soup when Gabriel came into the kitchen.
He set the blade on the center of the dining room table and Eli stood up, taking Sunny’s bowl of unfinished soup away. It was obviously time.
Gabriel took a seat at the head of the table. His face was serious, no sign of humor in it whatsoever.
“The blade is legit,” he said. “I had worried that Michael had given you some kind of half-assed weapon that he picked up from some stray demon. But it's a legitimate obsidian blade.”
She could have told him that, as she had killed two demons with it. But again, she kept her mouth shut. He knew that already. He was just looking out for her.
“What you have to understand, Sunny,” Gabriel began again. “Is that when you begin this process, no matter how much you don't want to continue, you must continue. You must see it all the way through, or you will die of the poisoning before your body has built any immunity. What I'm saying is, once you begin you cannot stop.”
The tension was rolling off of Eli in waves. It was obvious that he wanted her to decline, and to do it now. But her mind had been made up, even if it meant that she was going to be vomiting her brains out for the next month, a thought that made her shudder. Instead of speaking, Sunny nodded her head yes.
“Eli is going to restrain you,” Gabriel said, nodding over to Eli.
Eli pushed his chair back and gave his thighs a pat with his palms, indicating for Sunny to sit on his lap. It was a little beyond awkward, but she did as he asked.
“Give me one of your hands,” Gabriel said.
His own arm was outstretched with a palm up. Tentatively, Sunny reached her left hand across the distance between them and placed her hand in his. Arms like steel bands wrapped around her waist, trapping her right arm against her body. She stiffened immediately, but Eli whispered in her ear.
“You can do this.”
She shot a look over her shoulder at him.
“You don't believe that,” she said to him.
He simply shook his head. “I don't want you to endure this,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you can do this. You’re weak
er than most, yes. I won’t deny that. But you’re too damn stubborn to die from something as ordinary as obsidian poison.”
The ridiculous statement made her snort in laughter. It was true, though. Sunny probably should have been dead twenty times over, and yet here she sat, ready to poison herself with her own blade. Stubborn was one word for it.
Insane might be another.
“Ready?” Gabriel asked, tension in his voice making it sound more like a growl.
He had Sunny’s arm trapped on top of the table. In his other hand, he held her blade, aiming it at her forearm.
Panic broke out and she fought against it. Her heart raced, a sheen of sweat built on her brow. Every instinct in her body was screaming for her to back out before it was too late.
She nodded.
Gabriel was quick and efficient with the cut, not drawing out the act any longer than he had to. The moment the dark blade made contact with her skin, every nerve in her body was on fire and screaming in pain. When the blade cut through the layers of her skin, the pain intensified and just as Sunny was certain she was going to lose the few bites of soup she had managed to get down, she blacked out.
Chapter Six
That first day after the tiniest of cuts from the obsidian blade, Sunny experienced every bit of hell that Eli had promised. After blacking out when the tip of the blade broke her skin, she woke up on the floor of her bathroom with a towel beneath her head. According to Eli, two hours had passed between the cut and her waking up.
True to his other predictions, she had nausea immediately and the sensation didn't lift. She could hardly move her eyes around her bedroom without wanting to race back to the toilet and heave again. Luckily for Sunny, there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.
Along with the nausea came the fever. The fever was intense, and she found herself huddled beneath her blankets praying for it all to end. After the third hour, Sunny wondered if it was too late to take her choice back. Could Gabriel somehow uncut her?
Later that night, when Eli had checked in on her, leaving another bowl of soup beside her bed that would remain untouched, he warned her that starting tomorrow morning, she would be expected to resume her training with him.