by Urania Sarri
I was determined not to let her get to me this time. I knew how persistent she could be. Conversations such as this could easily result in an argument and frowning faces, and I was not in a mood for this. I already felt too weak. I’d have plenty of time to make up for the confusion I caused to her later.
“Nothing to worry about. You leave this to me. Why don’t you grab the opportunity to do some shopping at the mall?”
I parked in the mall parking lot and walked her to the ground floor.
“Do you need any money?” I asked, unable to hide my nervousness.
“No, thanks. I’m covered. Are you sure you’re okay?” I felt her eyes scan my face. “You’re really pale, and you’ve got these dark circles around your eyes.” Her pointer finger made small circles in the air at the level of my face.
She was looking at me with concern, and I felt something in my chest melt under the emerald of her eyes. She was worried about me. The strong urge to show her how touched I was by her concern pushed me forward; my hands squeezed her arms softly. Then a wave of hunger hit me, and I jerked backward again. My fingers curled into tight fists, as I drew my arms back and let them fall heavily against my thighs.
“I’ll meet you here in an hour. Just don’t go out alone, can you do this?” I said, averting my eyes from her face to scan the area around us.
It was impossible to fight back the guilt. I hated lying to her again, but to tell her the truth about how I fed was not an option. I wasn’t ready yet. The only thought that comforted me was that I’d soon be back feeling stronger and capable of showing her how I felt, without worrying about taking advantage of the human in her once more. I’d held back my feelings for too long. As soon as I fed, there would be nothing to keep me away from her, Guardian or not. I was an Invalid; everyone expected me to defy orders and skip celestial rules anyway.
Madison shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”
She cast me a last fleeting glance before turning around. For a moment, I thought I sensed something in the way she blinked, something that made me suspicious of her easy compromise, so unsuitable to the persistence she’d got me used to. But there was no time to deal with that. One hour might not be enough, but it was all I could afford. Then I needed about forty-five minutes to take her back to the cabin. If I stuck to my plan, everything would work out fine.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Awakened
I repeated to myself that I had no reason to be afraid. It was still daylight. Did Jerome want me close? Close I would be! I had to know what he was up to. Jerome probably had his reasons for not telling me what was so urgent, but that was not going to stop me from finding out. There were still gaps in his story. If I was to accept the sudden change in my life, I needed answers. And answers I would get, one way or another.
I drew up the hood of my jacket and followed Jerome out of the shopping center. He was walking fast; his head drooped, his shoulders slouched; nothing like his usual, smug style. There was definitely something wrong with him. I could tell he hadn’t been himself since he was wounded; and today, he seemed more detached than ever, absorbed in his own thoughts and barely talking to me.
That nasty gash on his shoulder had to be part of the problem. He could be in more pain than he admitted. I still flinched remembering how deep the cut was when I helped him change the gauge last night; blood was still oozing out of it. But Jerome had made the blood stop, and I thought I could see some tissue restore when I helped him with the gauge again this morning.
What could be so urgent to make him drive to Grose Vale in such a hurry? I was certain he was hiding something from me. Somehow, I had the hunch that his secret concerned me.
I followed him out of the Mall, on a side street towards the town center and across a small square with a funny statue of an owl. At some point, Jerome came to a halt and looked back making me lunge behind a book stall. He just looked at his watch before he started jogging across the street.
“Why the hurry Mr. Watcher?” I whispered to myself a little louder than I intended, making the lady behind the stall stare at me apprehensively. I ignored her and made for the street, barely catching a glimpse of Jerome getting inside a bar. Crouching, I hid behind a clump of bushes right across from where Jerome was sitting; it seemed like a good hiding spot, and from there I could see straight into the place. The neon sign on the wall wrote Paul’s, and through the glass windows, I could see the figures of no more than six customers. Two of them, both women, were sitting on tall bar stools. Jerome seated himself on a stool between them. Is he going to order a drink? I thought he never drinks. I smiled as I recalled Jerome’s confession about how hard it had been for him to pretend he was drinking and even to “accidentally” drop his glass of margarita strawberry on our first date. That reminded me of how there were still so many other questions I should have asked, but for some strange reason, I still hadn’t. It had occurred to me that Jerome might have other “talents”, like manipulating my thoughts and my mood; something I found quite disturbing and far-fetched.
Several minutes went by, or so it seemed to me. I was about to enter Paul’s and ask Jerome what on earth he was doing there when I saw that one of the women was leaving the bar while the other one was moving closer to Jerome. It looked like her next drink was on him and, although I could only see their backs, I didn’t miss the intentional brush of the woman’s bare arm on Jerome’s. I felt my blood boil, especially when Jerome’s hand caressed the woman’s back. It was only normal for any woman to fall for a man like him. He was gorgeous and sexy in an otherworldly way. But for him to respond like that; that wasn’t what I had expected.
Still in shock, I had to duck behind the line of bushes when Jerome and the woman left Paul’s. His arm was now around her shoulders, and he was leaning towards her to whisper something in her ear that seemed to make her giggle. I watched them walk away, thinking that with the incredibly short lilac dress she was wearing she was aiming for hot, but the outcome was trashy. They turned right into an alley that I guessed led to the back of the bar.
Angry tears wetted my cheeks when I lost sight of them. Seriously, did I want to see what they were doing in the dark alley? Did I have the right to be angry at Jerome for that? It’s not like he had made me any promises. We’d kissed a few times, and I’d thought something had started between us, but that was before he’d let me in on his secrets. During all this time I’d been hiding with him, we flirted, and I had often thought about the chemistry building up between us; but as it seemed, Jerome was obviously looking for something else. Something that he thought I couldn’t give him.
I was about to go back to the mall when I saw Jerome come out of the alley alone. Head hanging down, and body slouched more than I’d seen him do when he left the shopping center, he looked at his watch. I ducked again when he headed towards my side of the street and walked fast to the square without noticing me.
Well, he could run if he wanted. I wasn’t going to make this easier for him. Let him wait, I thought. What bothered me the most was that I could not explain to myself why I was so angry at him. Maybe because he needed other women when I was right there? Did he think I was not good enough for him? Okay, I was a little messed up. I’d lost my memory, and I had no idea about all that stuff he’d told me about Watchers and Guardians. But he was no better! His story was much weirder than mine. Besides, I was doing my best to deal with all that, and I was definitely more good-looking than the woman he had picked up.
I came to an abrupt halt the minute a haunting thought occurred to me. Where was the blonde? Why did Jerome come out alone looking so guilty?
I turned and ran to the alley hoping that I was wrong.
“No! He can’t have hurt her!” I whispered to myself as I reached the dark alley and looked around. Hesitantly, I made a few steps forward. It was a cloudy day, and the sun was already hidden behind the mountain peaks. Soon it would be dark. I had to hurry.
It was right then that I heard a low moan.
“
Hello?” I shouted.
Something moved behind the garbage bin. I went closer to see the woman lying among rubbish bags. I knelt beside her.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She was younger than I had thought, probably in her twenties. Mussy, bleached hair hid her face, but the deep red lips and the heavy makeup on her glazed eyes made me think she was deliberately trying to look older than her age. The girl was looking at me with confusion all over her face, like she was waking up from a deep sleep.
“What did he do to you?” I asked again.
“Who?” the girl mumbled, trying to stand up, her breath reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke.
“Are you hurt? Want me to call anyone?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” she barked at me as if I’d been the one who’d brought her into this situation.
Bewildered at her aggressive mood, I stepped back and watched her stagger away.
A wave of chill overwhelmed me. I realized it was too late. I fumbled my pockets for my cell. Then my back bag. My cell was gone. It must have fallen off my pocket when I lunged behind the bookstall.
An eerily primitive instinct warned me; I was all of a sudden aware of the fact that the chill surrounding me could only mean one thing.
It was then that I started to run, a loud voice in my head warning:
“THEY’RE HERE!”
I ran across the square, every single hair on my body rising as an icy fog started to grow around me, blocking my sight. The pale light of dusk had suddenly gone out. Every sound was blocked; the world around me seemed to have come to a halt, submerging into an eerie silence. Thick darkness started to grow around me, threatening to swallow me into another world, a world that, I somehow knew, was of no return.
The shrieks inside my head made me feel like it was about to explode. They were terrifying in a familiar way. And although I could not tell who they were coming from, I knew one thing: it was an alarm.
The shrieks blended with my own scream when a hand grabbed me from behind, making me fall on what seconds ago was a pebbled floor. I remembered where I was. I blinked, and the subtle, dark images of the trees around me appeared again. Something or someone had brought me back from the darkness.
Jerome was breathing fast, his body heavy upon mine.
“What were you thinking? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He sounded really mad.
“I lost my cell and...” I mumbled, but Jerome stopped me.
“We don’t have time for this.” He pulled me up and looked around. The fog had thinned, but the square still looked evacuated. No sign of the book lady, not even a soul near us. Only the tall trees bordering the square towered above us. Beyond us, the inestimable black void.
“What is this? The twilight zone?” I asked in a trembling voice. “What do we do now?”
“We provoke them. We don’t want to let them scare us.” Jerome’s unfaltering voice surprised me.
“How exactly are we going to do that?”
“Just stay behind me.”
He pushed me behind him, my back against the trunk of a tree.
Then he spoke in a voice that was startlingly authoritative. I could not think of anyone or anything that would be able to defy the command that was mostly felt than heard.
“Nice trick but I know you are here. Show yourselves,” Jerome said, shielding me with his body.
A grave voice spoke through the thinning mist.
“We have no interest in you Invalid. It’s the girl we want.”
“Well, you can’t have her. Go back to the shadows where you belong.”
Three cloaked figures slid out of the murky mist towards us. The Snatchers. They looked still, but I could tell they were floating, their feet hovering above the ground. They either had no faces, or I wasn’t able to discern it in the dark fog that surrounded them.
“WE.WANT.HER.WE .WANT. THE. XIFOS,” one of them hissed and I started to shiver against Jerome’s warm body.
“Go away,” Jerome threatened them, but something cracked in his voice this time, a gap that the three creatures did not miss because they started to move closer.
“You will give her to us,” the same Snatcher growled. “For a long time, you have resisted us, Invalid. It’s time to make a choice. Taste her blood. Become immortal. Become powerful. Or die.”
“Never. I will never become a monster like you,” Jerome said in a strained voice.
“You choose to perish then?” the Snatcher hissed. “When you can join our masters? When you can be powerful? Just to protect a Dormant?”
“Are you going to talk me to death? I have killed a lot of your kind, slime. Come fight me!”
“I’m not like the others. And I don’t need to fight.” The Snatcher croaked and raised a black, bony arm. “Your choice, Invalid. Perish then.”
The grimy fog surrounded us like a thick serpent.
“LEAVE US ALONE!” I shouted behind Jerome’s back, feeling his weakness grow.
“You will surrender to us, Dormant,” the Snatcher threatened me. “Once the Invalid perishes.”
Jerome spread his arms in a protective move, but I felt his back stiffen, and that was enough to make me realize the fog was hurting him. Although I could not see the Snatcher’s eyes, I was certain he was focused on Jerome.
I heard Jerome’s breath slow down and turn into a moan as he touched his chest.
“Samuel,” he whispered. His knees bent, and he knelt, unable to support his body, leaving me exposed to the black figures who seemed to be moving closer.
“What are you doing to him? STOP!” I cried.
I knelt next to him. “Jerome? What can I do?”
I thought I heard him whisper run in my mind, but then I might have imagined that. I wasn’t going to run. There was nowhere to go. Jerome was curling at my feet, his forehead almost touching the ground and I could tell that somehow the creatures were killing him without even touching him.
Something cold and heavy nudged against my back. Instinctively, I put my hand on it only to find my fingers clenched around the handle of my sword. The xifos. It gleamed in the darkness in a way that made it look brand-new and polished. No longer the rusty antique I used to keep on my bedside. But I didn’t have time to think how that could be possible. On another level, I didn’t need to think about that at all. I just knew.
Jerome was dying, and I had to do something. Glancing at the evil creatures, I found them retreating at the sight of me clasping the ancient weapon. The sword of an angel. Should I give it to them? The thought crossed my mind for a moment, and I dismissed it right away.
It was then that I saw red. Literally. Like a bloody veil fell in front of my eyes and I was watching the world around me behind a tint of red.
It made me forget my fear.
It made me forget who I was, where I was, who I was supposed to protect.
There was only the enemy in my mind. An ancient enemy. An easily defeated one. The sword was leading me to them; it made me crave the kill.
Smirking, I stood up slowly, the need to destroy the creatures overwhelming me more and more. The sword made my arm move –now I was certain it was alive. I wielded it and sneered at the three hooded figures.
“You want it? Come get it then.” A stranger’s voice came out of my mouth.
I lunged toward the creature who was still hurting Jerome, and a line of sharp, shark-like teeth glistened under the gleam of my sword. It should be horrifying. Nightmarish. But not to me. Not at that moment. It only made me more frantic to make it vanish.
Before crashing the gleaming metal of the blade on the hooded head with the force of a killing blow, the creature moved swiftly behind me at a speed too fast for the human eye.
Challenging.
A black, bony hand with long fingers that looked more like claws clenched my arm. Another one curled around my neck.
“Give it now and save your life,” the Snatcher hissed, letting out a reek of decay.
“Never!” I hissed back.
The sword was putting the words in my mouth.
I practiced my favorite self-defense moves; my arm jerked backward, the handle of my sword hit the creature somewhere below the chest, making it step back as I twirled around with unbelievable speed to land crouching on one knee. The blade found the Snatcher’s neck with enough force to decapitate him.
Intoxicating.
For a moment, the headless dark figure hovered like it wouldn’t know where to turn to. It was an absurdly ridiculous image, and I let out a cry of joy. Then the fog surrounded the headless Snatcher and he vanished.
The two others, though, were now standing on each side of me and I clenched my sword with both hands stepping backward, ready for another blow. My foot stopped against something that was on the ground. Something I didn’t care about.
“ENOUGH!”
The dark figures, now only inches away from Jerome and me, recoiled as they were taken aback by Samuel’s presence behind them. For a few seconds, they seemed to be changing shapes at a frantic speed, dark caricatures of the intimidating creatures they presented when I first saw them.
I looked at my empty hands. When did I drop my sword?
“LEAVE THIS PLACE! NOW!” Samuel commanded and, although I could swear his lips had not moved at all, his voice sounded clear as a bell to my ears.
No longer concealed behind a red tint, the shadows shrank quickly until they vanished.
“Thank...you...brother,” Jerome mumbled.
Jerome! I thought, realizing that when I was fighting the Snatcher, I had forgotten about him. He’s still alive!
“What are you waiting for?” Samuel was talking to me, his eyes widened. “Give him your usia,” he ordered.
Jerome needed me to strengthen up?
“How?” I mumbled, clenching my shaking hands in fists.
“How? I guess you can put your mouth on his and blow if you don’t mind,” Samuel said in a derisive manner that would have made me mad, had the circumstances been different.