“Why?”
“Why does it dissipate on its own?”
He nodded.
“Every spell costs a price. When casting spells, hexes even, the cost is the caster’s energy and energy can’t feed itself. Without tending, long-term spells like this fade as the initial expenditure of energy fades.” That’s why the Watcher added the suicide curse. The memory curse would fade and he needed to ensure Julius was dead before that happened. “But you can fight the suicide curse.”
For a long time, he was quiet. Despite the bandage, he stared at her.
“You can see me through that, can’t you?” She wet her lips. It was those eyes. They could see her through the covering. “That’s how you move around so easily. How you knew I was holding up three fingers even though the bandage covered your eyes.”
His jaw flexed. “What do I do to fight the curse?”
Why wouldn’t he talk about it? She wanted to pursue her questions, but didn’t want him closing himself off again. She sighed. “Um, well, first you’ll want to get comfortable—”
He snuggled right back into the same position, his shoulder pressing tight to her core.
Well, at least one of them was comfortable. “Close your eyes. Take in slow, deep breaths. Your mind will wander and that’s what we want.” With each breath his shoulder pressed against her. Her nipples tightened and shivers ghosted over her skin.
“Here. Sit up for a sec.” She scooted back and sat with her back against the headboard. Crossed her legs and lay a pillow in her lap. She patted the pillow. “Come here.”
He lay back, his head on the pillow cradled between her legs. Better.
She smoothed her fingers through his hair. “Try to relax. Breathe deep. Slow.”
His whole body thrummed with tension. His breathing was too shallow. He’d never achieve a meditative state like this. “Not from your chest.” She reached down his body.
His hand clamped around her wrist before she even touched him. “What are you doing?”
What was she doing? He’d just told her he’d been raped. He needed time to trust her. She needed to remember to get consent. “Showing you where I want you to pull breath from.” She extended one finger and brushed his abdomen above the band of his boxers. “Here. May I?”
He released her hand. His features relaxed.
She settled her palm over his belly button. “Try to lift my hand with each breath.”
He moved his belly and his chest with the next breath. Sighed. Shifted. Rubbed his hand over his chest. And did the same thing again. After a few moments, he got the hang of things and her hand lifted a smidge. “Good.” This would be easier if she could use Magic, if she could help him meditate. But what if he triggered the curse as they tried to remove it and he tried to hurt himself again? She didn’t want to risk burning out her Magic trying to help him meditate in case she needed it to heal him later. “Let your mind wander.” She sat back, cupping his face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. His stubble tickled. “Where are you?”
“In your bed.”
Her lips twitched. “In your head, Jules. What are you thinking about?”
He frowned. Several minutes passed, their breathing the only sound in the room. “A desert. The dirt is cracked, dry. A storm is brewing overhead. There’s lightning.”
“Good.” She ran her thumb over his jawline. “Keep telling me what you see. Breathe deep. Slow.”
“There’s a house.”
Her fingers stilled. The house represented the body. “What’s it look like?” Old. Weathered. The porch sags and the windows are broken.
“Abandoned. It needs a lot of work—new windows, new paint, new wood on the porch. The lock on the door is busted.”
She closed her eyes. She’d been to that house—to his house—before. Claire, one of the witches from her coven had done some dream Magic to help her find Julius on the astral plane a few weeks ago. She’d found him chained in the basement, far too close to giving up for good.
Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. She wet her lips. “That’s good for today.”
“No.” His arm lifted as if he pushed something in front of him to the side. “I can go inside.”
She swallowed. Should she let him keep going, or keep him safe? The fact that he’d lifted his arm here to push the door open on the astral, was worrisome. He’d blurred the lines between his physical body and his vision.
“Somebody trashed the place. The floors are wet, scarred . . . gouged. The books are ripped up and lying all over the floor.”
She wasn’t surprised. Books represented knowledge and memories and the Watcher would’ve wanted to keep him as isolated and ignorant as possible.
“Should I go upstairs?”
“Down.” What was she doing? That might force memories. That’s where she found him when they met on the astral. “Up. Go up.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. His hand fisted.
“Jules?” She stroked her thumb over the corner of his lips. “Breathe, baby.”
“The stairs are ruined. There’s a big hole, six steps are missing. It’s too far to jump.”
“You can fix them if you want. Visualize the stairs mending. Imagine them whole.” Sooner or later he’d have to repair his house—himself. Put all the parts and pieces back in order so he’d have a safe place within himself.
“There’s blood in the kitchen.”
What? “Jules, go back and fix the stairs. You have to keep talking. Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Why’s there so much blood? It’s fresh. Wet. The whole room smells tinny.” His breathing grew shallow. Fast.
“It’s okay, Jules. The blood isn’t surprising considering the memory you had.” It signified emotional turmoil. That all that turmoil was in the kitchen—the heart of the home wasn’t a good sign. Worse, there hadn’t been any blood in the kitchen when she’d visited him on the astral. The stairs leading up to the second story hadn’t been broken. He was worse off today than he’d been two weeks ago when she’d visited him on the astral. “Okay. That’s enough for today.”
“This is mine.” He sat up, rolled to the edge of the bed, and stood.
She froze. “What’s yours? Where are you?”
“The art. It’s broken. It was mine, damn it.” His dreams. His passions. All broken.
He was in the basement. Kat got up and eased around the bed. This wasn’t how a meditation was supposed to work. “Go back to the main floor.”
“No. I can fix this. I can—” His head whipped to the side and he stared into the corner of the room. “What are you doing here?”
Was he talking to her?
He tipped his head one way and then the other, as if studying something in the corner. He walked past her and crouched, facing the corner.
The hair at her nape lifted. “Get out of there, Jules.”
He backed up a step. “What are you?”
“Wake up.” She clapped her hands together once, but the sound wasn’t loud enough. “Jules!”
“Come on, then.” He hunched over, arms to the side as if getting ready to wrestle whatever he had encountered.
She reached out to shake him awake but before she touched him, he jerked upright and fell back, slamming into the floor and sliding as if something had tackled him.
He rolled to his side and let out a low moan. “What the hell was that?”
“Jules? Are you awake?”
“Fuck me.” He pulled himself to his knees, looked down and touched something on his chest. “I thought meditation was supposed to be relaxing.”
“What hurts?” She walked around his side as he stood.
Three long lacerations went from his left shoulder to his right hip. Claw marks.
“That’s not possible.” Whatever he had encountered in his dream shouldn’t have been able to hurt him on this plane. “Did you see it? What was it?”
“I don’t . . . .” He shook his head as he touched one of the marks with a trem
bling hand. “It’s like waking from a dream. I know it was bad. I know I wanted it out of me. . . .” He shook his head again. “I can’t picture it now. It was in the corner, but I can’t . . . .”
“It’s okay, Jules.” She forced a smile and wrapped him in a hug, being careful not to press against the wounds on his chest.
At first, he didn’t hug her back. He stood there shaking. Then one arm loosely wrapped around her hip.
“We’re going to figure this out. I’m going to heal those scratches and we’ll take it easy tonight. We’ll try again.”
But even as she made the promise, she wasn’t sure if they should. Not with her Magic dying out.
Abaddon was grateful enough for the body, that he in turn did a favor for Lilith. He found an angel who’d come to Earth to see what was taking all the goddess’ attention. The angel’s name was Samael. He was strong and handsome and Lilith liked him immediately. The two mated and were happy together. Samael wanted to keep Lilith forever and he bit her to give her immortality.
Once again, Abaddon was alone.
The goddess fisted her hands. This wasn’t good at all.
Chapter 12
Thursday
Kat sat cross-legged on the couch and propped open her laptop. She wanted to get some research done before Julius woke.
Last night had been nice. Calm. She’d told him stories about her and her coven sisters when they were growing up—though she’d had to be careful not to mention anyone by name—she didn’t want to rush his memories. She’d read to him for a while—The Man in the Iron Mask—until he admitted he knew the book well. He’d ended up telling her a condensed version of the story. They’d talked about movies; it bothered her a bit that he seemed to have seen every movie ever made.
It made sense that he was remembering inconsequential things like movies first. The Watcher probably focused the memory spell on preventing him from remembering real events that took place during the possession. She was starting to think the Watcher had used movies as a distraction. The Watcher could see everything everywhere, after all. So why not distract Julius with pop-culture while he was watching more important events he didn’t want his host to notice? The fact that Julius remembered all those movies concerned her, though. When his memories returned, would he recall everything the Watcher had seen while possessed, too? She was starting to think he would and that might not be a good thing.
At sunrise, the curse had taken over. She’d yelled “Watcher” and like last time, the memory curse overrode the felo-de-se hex. The seizure had lasted longer, which was another concern. By the time he’d stopped shaking, the sun had been well over the horizon. She’d taken him upstairs to bed and sometime during the day, he’d wrapped himself right around her to sleep.
She shifted uncomfortably, covering her warm cheeks with her hands. She’d lain there with all that hard muscle and warm male snuggled between her thighs and woken restless, wanting. Needing to arch up into him. To pull his face to her breast. To lick every inch of his yummy body. She wouldn’t make it through another day sharing the same bed with him without embarrassing herself.
Quit daydreaming!
Her desktop was up, waiting for her to do something. She pulled up her browser and typed in Mary Jane Kelly.
The search results told her everything she needed to know—Mary Jane Kelly was one of Jack the Ripper’s victims. She didn’t click on any of the results. Didn’t need to know more. Didn’t want to see the pictures or read the police reports. Those murders had happened after the Clearances, in 1587. After he was possessed. As had the rape. What else would he remember?
Gaia, help him.
Kat glanced up from her computer, everything was still quiet upstairs. Good. He needed the rest to heal.
She went to the news. A pencil-sketch of her mate took up most of the space on the front page. The headline read The Harbinger — $1,000,000,000 For Capture or Information Leading to Capture.
Everyone must be searching for Julius. How were Lilith and Trina managing? Were they having to send out scouts to look for him in order to keep up the ruse? Her face heated. What if someone they sent got hurt? With the Nephilim still active, it was a definite possibility.
She shook her head. Julius was innocent. He deserved a chance to prove it. She focused on the article.
* * *
Julius Crowley, as the suspect is now known, is wanted for creating Nephilim in collaboration with Revelations Industries. U.S. intelligence agencies, in cooperation with allied daemons, have determined Crowley’s direct collusion with Revelations Industries. The initial objective of the experimentation appears to be curing the fifteen infected U.S. soldiers of symptoms caused by one of RI’s bio-weapons. Post-treatment, the soldiers transformed into the creatures we now call Nephilim and attacked RI employees, as well as naval personnel stationed on Smyrna Island, where RI’s facilities are located. RI’s director, Dr. Edwin Moss, was found dead at the scene, as were twelve others. All other personnel are assumed to have been transformed. Within hours of the failed experiment, reports of Nephilim came in from Russia, Hungry, Greece, and later that day, in the U.S.
* * *
Even if everything worked out, how would they ever convince the humans he was innocent? How would they prove that he’d been possessed by a being far more powerful? Most humans hadn’t believed in daemons before last week. They were stretched to the limits of their understanding right now and terrified on top of that.
Kat pressed her hand to her roiling belly and shook her head. Vampires were empty except for the darkness keeping them alive. She shouldn’t feel sick to her stomach over this—she didn’t have a stomach anymore—but she did.
Footsteps approached and her gaze flicked up. She forced herself to smile. “I thought you were sleeping.”
He looked lost. “I feel like I should be doing something.”
“Resting. Healing. That’s all you need to worry about right now.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “What are you doing? I could help.”
She lowered the lid to her laptop. “Just a little research into the felo-de-se curse. No help needed.”
For a moment he held her gaze. Then he shook his head and went upstairs.
Kat opened her computer and scrolled to the next article.
* * *
Outrage Sparks as Curfew Enforced in U.S.
* * *
With reports of Nephilim assaults coming in worldwide, the U.S. government, for the first time ever, has issued a “dusk ’til dawn” curfew. While this is an effort to protect U.S. citizens, billions of dollars of revenue have been lost due to the curfew. Loss of life in the U.S. has entered the hundred-thousand mark with almost a million unaccounted for. We can only assume at this time that those missing can now be counted among the Nephilim that the daemons have agreed to fight on our behalf.
The government has pulled all police and emergency personnel from nightshift operations as they are unable to effectively combat the Nephilim. Instead, daemon patrols will respond to night emergencies.
While many citizens are against the alliance, the government says at this time the daemons are the only hope we have. Senator Keen [D-WA] pointed out, “They [the daemons] don’t have to help us. That they’re offering is a testament to their spirit of goodwill toward humans.” He went on to say, “I don’t understand why the community is upset with our alliance. It’s in our best interests. The daemons have been here as long as we have, longer maybe. The fact that we now know about them—why is that a cause for concern?”
* * *
Gaia, help them both. She’d have to keep her phone and computer on lockdown. If he saw this before he recovered his memories . . . . Her gaze caught on the next article. “That doesn’t sound good.”
* * *
Department of Daemonic Control in Full-Swing
* * *
Senator Dorset [R-MS], a steadfast opponent of a human-daemon alliance, has agreed to head the oversight committee for th
e DDC, Department of Daemonic Control. In an interview, Dorset said, “I will do everything in my power to ensure federal funds are not squandered within the new department.” He’s also proposed an Internal Review Agency specific to the DDC, headed by humans to make certain there are no abuses by or within the organization.
The DDC will be headquartered in Seattle, WA where the old Supreme Court building resides. Seattle’s Mayor says he “. . . believes the transition will be smooth and the DDC will become an asset to their community.” Satellite offices are being proposed in Colorado, New York, and Pennsylvania, with other cities waiting to see how the DDC fares before extending their welcome.
* * *
She snorted. “Smooth?”
“Did you say something?”
Julius stood at the top of the stairs.
“Mumbling to myself. That’s all.”
“You need anything?”
“Yes. I need you to rest. That includes sleeping, painting, sitting on the couch, and . . . .” And what? He couldn’t watch TV. Couldn’t read. He wouldn’t take that bandage off and really, did she want him to? “Let me finish up and I’ll read to you for a while.”
He disappeared back into the bedroom. Poor guy. He didn’t seem the type to do idle well. He must be crawling out of his skin.
He was trying not to be impatient. He really was.
Yesterday, after the meditation fiasco, Kat had played the part of a charming hostess. They’d spent the remainder of the night chatting about nothing at all. It had been pleasant. No. That wasn’t right. It would’ve been pleasant, if not for the underlying tension.
His mind had been full of what ifs and whys and his anxiety had manifested in the feeling of thousands of spiders crawling under his skin. Maybe it was the knowledge there was something awful in him. Maybe he was really, truly losing his mind. Oh, he’d smiled and done his best to be charming in return—but it wasn’t his forte. He was a fighter. A merc for hire. He always had been.
The Knight: The Original's Trilogy - Book 3 Page 11