The Order (Nightwalkers Book 8)

by Candace Wondrak

  Liz gave me a weird look before moving out of the kitchen, heading toward Max. Her stride stopped when she viewed the destroyed wall, the shattered windows. I let them survey the damage for a few minutes, figuring they needed to see it eventually. Once I was sure they were done, I meandered to the stairwell, leaning on it, looking at them both.

  “There’s a lot you need caught up on,” I said.

  Liz’s hand dug into her purse, retrieving her cell phone. “Where is Michael?” she asked again. “What happened? Max, go check on Gabriel.” She and I both watched as he zoomed past me on the stairs, taking two at a time, something I never quite mastered. Too short. “There better be an impeccable explanation for this,” she said, authoritative.

  Funny.

  “What do you want me to tell you first? Do you want me to explain how Michael’s been poisoning me, or how he tried to kill me? Or, maybe, do you want me to tell you Gabriel’s not himself after waking up?” I threw out the options, my words venom. I was so very upset, and I couldn’t just swallow it down and pretend everything was fine. “Michael was going to kill me, and Gabriel showed up in the nick of time and saved me. Then he told me, after Michael was gone, that he shouldn’t have. That I should’ve just died.”

  Liz took her time in answering, “Kass, I…that doesn’t make sense. Why would Michael try to kill you? What proof do you have he was poisoning you? I don’t—”

  The man upstairs, and I didn’t mean God or Gabriel or Max, flashed into the living room, loudly dropping a large chest on the coffee table, causing Liz to nearly jump out of her skin. She whirled on him, her phone slipping from her hands as she reached inside her purse and withdrew a stake. Like she could purify the un-purifiable.

  “I believe the proof you desire is all right here,” Crixis spoke with a smirk.

  Liz could not tear her eyes from him. “What are you doing in this house, fiend?” Her voice shook with…was it fear?

  I tilted my head. Not long ago I would’ve done the same if he would’ve popped up out of nowhere. Today, I felt very insensitive. Like a third party, like I wasn’t really here, and this stuff wasn’t really happening to me. This wasn’t my life.

  But it was.

  And because it was, I moved between Liz and Crixis, shooting her a harsh glare. Gabriel used to call them my famous death glares. They didn’t feel so famous anymore. In fact, this particular one felt rather half-hearted. “Crixis isn’t the enemy,” I said, realizing how weird it sounded.

  How wrong it was, after everything he’d done to me, to us. Yet here we were.

  “Kass,” Liz warned, gripping the stake in her small hand tighter, “I don’t know how you fell under his spell, but step away from him. We did not lose Taiton only to—”

  “To be fair,” Crixis mused, “I wasn’t the one who killed that behemoth of a man. Sephira had the honor. You might remember her. She killed Kass and, probably, started this mess by revealing to Michael what Gabriel truly is.”

  “And what’s that?” Liz’s voice wavered, the question spat out as if she didn’t give a single care what it’s answer was. Did she believe what we said? No, probably not, because she was in love with Michael.

  Max and Gabriel pounded down the stairs. Max froze instantly at the sight of Crixis, while Gabriel simply glared. Now that was a death glare. I felt my skin harden, and I did my best to ignore it, overlook how it was pointed at me. “Yes,” Gabriel spoke, frowning, “what’s that?”

  Liz’s curious expression turned to him, her hand starting to shake. She was a smart woman; she had to see his hair was darker and the thin tattoos that used to line his skin were gone.

  “You,” Crixis said, not batting an eye at his appearance or his stature, “are the Devil incarnate. Your soul is not new. It’s an old one, reborn and given a second chance. Judging from the disgusting sneer on your face, you’ll choose to fall again.”

  Gabriel let out a growl, and in a split-second, appeared before Crixis, towering over him with his superior height. Everyone in the room, even Liz, was shocked he had moved so quickly, faster than any eye could’ve picked up. “I have not made any decisions yet,” he told Crixis. “You should worry, though, because no matter what I choose, I will take you with me. I will end you like so many others have tried.”

  “Gabriel,” I spoke his name, which only caused his ire to turn on me.

  “What?” he hissed, sounding not at all like the Gabriel I knew, my best friend, my…my everything. “I saw you together. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him. I hope he’s a good replacement for me, as temporary as he’ll be.”

  I couldn’t believe him. How could he say those things to me? Without thinking, I reached for him, touching his bare arm. The very second my skin came into contact with his, my flesh burned.

  It was like touching a hot iron, a hot stove burner. A thousand degrees. The pain instant and terrible. Wincing, I quickly withdrew my hand from him, stumbling back. I gripped my injured wrist, staring down at my bloody, bubbling hand with my mouth open.

  Did he burn me on purpose?

  “Do not touch me,” Gabriel said. When he glanced around to the others in the room, he added, “In fact, don’t even speak to me. I just want to be left alone.” Pushing past Liz and Max, he stormed up the stairs.

  Finally, the hand holding the stake fell to her side, and Liz muttered, “I…I don’t understand. How…” Her eyes moved to me, to the Demon beside me. “How did this happen?” Her eyes grew watery, and she slowly made her way to me. “Do you need anything?”

  “You still have my blood in your system,” Crixis told me. “Clean it up, and it should heal before nightfall, unless you want more?” The question was added only to further remind me how I’d already drunk from him.

  Knowing his blood was inside me, it wasn’t a good feeling. I hated it almost as much as I hated this new Gabriel. The Gabriel that hurt me. Even the other world’s Gabriel hadn’t done anything like this to me. I wanted to vomit.

  “Max,” Liz ordered, “help her clean it up. You.” She stared daggers at Crixis. “Get out of my sight. I need to think.” She went to the couch, where I had nearly felt my will to live vanish, pausing as she looked to the mantle, at the dozen broken frames on the floor, at all the jagged glass. She’d never seemed so broken.

  I went with Max to the kitchen. The boy knew exactly where our first aid kit was; we’d used it on numerous occasions. Fighting evil wasn’t the safest job around, and ever since moving here, it was like all the evil came crawling to us. I just wanted it to leave me alone; I wanted a normal life. I wanted to be a teenage girl thinking about homecoming and graduation and even college.

  But I’d never get it.

  I sat at the table, waiting for Max. Crixis appeared before me, kneeling down as he said, “I will be right outside. No one will enter this house while I am watching…unless you want me to go after Michael.”

  “Not yet,” I whispered. “Let Liz come to terms with it first. When she agrees, then you can go after him.” It was beyond ridiculous that I was telling Crixis what to do, and even crazier he was actually nodding along and listening to me. What strange, opposite world did I fall into this time when I wasn’t looking?

  If only the cause were so simple. Unfortunately, this was my real world. This was my mess of a life.

  As Crixis flashed away, Max stumbled back into the kitchen, clutching the first aid box. He sat beside me, pulling out everything he needed. I heard him gulp as I offered him my injured hand. It looked even worse than it did a minute ago, even redder and angrier. It didn’t even look like a palm anymore. Just burnt flesh.

  He grabbed the rag in front of the sink, holding it under my hand. He poured some sterilizing solution over it, and my skin bubbled and oozed pus. I grimaced as he softly spoke, “Claire was right behind us. Out of everyone, she’s especially going to have a problem with your new friend. I know I do.”

  Right. Because Crixis bit Claire and threatened to let her die and turn i
nto a Nightwalker unless I helped him. Because he killed Koath, Max’s Guardian. Because he was the reason why Koath requested Taiton’s aid. Everyone had a reason to despise Crixis. Everyone hated him.

  “He’s not my friend,” I spoke through the pain. The pain radiating through my hand, up my arm and through my stomach was pure agony. The pain I felt in my heart was nothing short of torture. “I hate him as much as you do.”

  “Then you have a strange way of showing it,” Max said, dabbing my hand dry. He reached for bandages. “Michael really tried to kill you?”

  I nodded.

  “And Gabriel is…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Gabriel was, for all intents and purposes, the Devil. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t, that he had a good childhood with me, that we laughed and played and fought each other, bickering like siblings. His old soul had won out. The happy-go-lucky Gabriel was gone, replaced by a mean, sneering, hurtful one instead. How long until he decided he was done with us? Clearly, he was already done with me.

  Fighting my emotions, I said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Max. Gabriel is everything to me. He’s all I have left.”

  “You have me,” he said, “and Claire. And Liz. You’re not alone, Kass.”

  I studied the boy. He was intent, eager, extremely smart. Beneath his frail-looking exterior lied sinewy muscle and a deep voice that belonged on the radio. Freckles on his face, behind his big glasses. Gabriel and I had made fun of him from day one, but he’d never done anything to us. He was one of us. Even though he wasn’t Gabriel, he was still my friend.

  “I know,” I muttered, closing my eyes. “It’s just not the same.”

  “We’ll get through this, like we’ve gotten through everything else.” As Max tried to comfort me, the front door flew open, and an irate Claire stormed in, fuming.

  Her athletic body wore workout shorts and a tank top, her short yellow hair tied back with a tie dye bandana. “Can somebody explain to me what the hell that bastard is doing on your front porch?” She was outraged before she saw the bandage on my hand and the broken window in the back of the living room. She glanced at Liz’s hunched figure before coming into the kitchen, lowering her voice somewhat, “What is going on?”

  I looked at Max, wordlessly begging him to tell her. I couldn’t handle saying everything again. As Max told Claire the gist of it, I held my eyes shut and blocked out the world. I hoped Claire wouldn’t be mad at me for having Crixis here. Everything was so topsy-turvy in my life, I couldn’t trust anyone. I knew I couldn’t trust Crixis—but it was the only thing I knew. Everything else I thought was fact? Gone. Scattered in the wind, lost the moment Michael had tried to kill me and Gabriel had told me he should’ve let me die.

  If this was how my life would play out from here on out, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live it.

  Chapter Four - Liz

  I stared at the chest, at the red cross atop it, for what felt like hours. The hot, muggy air of this state crept in through the broken windows, flies swarming in. It wasn’t too long ago when I sent Max and Claire to the home improvement store for wood, nails, and a hammer. It was all I could commit to. I wasn’t about to order the renovation of the wall and those windows on the Council’s dime when I was not certain what was happening here.

  Gabriel, the Devil? Michael, an attempted murderer? Crixis, the most wanted Demon in all of the Council’s history, a friend and a helper? Nothing made sense.

  I had the chest beside me on the couch, my legs tucked beneath my backside as I slowly searched through it. Vials of liquids sat fastened to the lid beneath black velvet Velcro. I ran my fingers over them, plucking one out and uncorking it, giving the small vial a whiff. Almost immediately my nerves fried and my vision grew blurry. I quickly corked it and returned it to its spot.

  Poison didn’t seem so out of the picture now.

  It’d be one thing if Crixis had just brought this down out of nowhere, but I remembered seeing it in Michael’s closet. I remember tracing the red cross and tugging the padlock. I gave up, figuring it was locked for a reason. Every adult should have some privacy when it came to having children in the house, even if the children were not theirs.

  I did not think these would be the contents, though.

  Gabriel hadn’t let himself out of his room, nor had Kass moved herself from the kitchen. I knew I should ask them questions, find out what happened—every single detail of it—but I couldn’t. I had to find out what Michael hid from me, from all of us. How was I so blind? How did I not see the signs?

  Was he that good of a liar?

  My stomach felt queasy, and I felt physically ill. Did he lie to me when we were together years ago, or did this change inside him come on within the last twenty years? I hadn’t seen him much after he was assigned Gabriel. He came to the U.S. and was nearly off the Council’s radar. And then, of course, I wondered how he could’ve known about Gabriel. I didn’t know if I believed he was the Devil incarnate, but clearly, he wasn’t altogether human. He’d burned Kass without even trying.

  That was a very Demonic power.

  I reached for my phone, searching red cross. I should’ve known better than to do it, for all of the results dealt with the volunteer and charity organization. I added the phrase equal sides and went to the images tab. It took a bit of scrolling, but I found a single picture of a similar-looking cross amongst the Red Cross’s emblem. I clicked on it, and the website was slow to open. My eyes scanned over the article, picking up various words that stuck out.

  Medieval. Christianity. Crusade.

  “Oh, my…God,” I murmured, transfixed on the screen. I knew I recognized that blasted, bleeding symbol. I knew I had seen it before, but I couldn’t remember where. I knew it because it was our history. Not only the world’s history, but also the Council’s, Purifier’s, even Demon’s. This was all of our history, and one of the darkest ages of man.

  The red cross belonged to a specialized fighting unit of the Inquisition, an order which was supposedly disbanded in the fourteen hundreds. From its ashes sprung the first-ever Council and the first Witch-made Purifier. They were supposed to be gone, nonexistent, especially now, today. This world was no place for such violence and barbarism. The world today did not need the Knights Templar.

  The Templar Order was supposed to spread Christianity, help those who needed it, while also providing military assistance in the Crusades. They were to protect the people from each other and Demons. When they were disbanded, the Council formed to take on the mantle of Demon-slaying, but, clearly, somehow the Templars had survived.

  I clutched the robe inside the chest, my hand shaking with the discovery. Standing, I dropped the robe and scrolled through my contacts. I had dozens of other high-ranking councilmen and women in my phone, but who could I trust? If Michael had hidden this the entire time…what if he was not alone?

  What if there were others?

  Who did I trust with my life? Certainly not the members of the Council. They were far too anti-Demon; they’d demand me to purify Claire and Gabriel, along with Crixis. While I still loathed Crixis, Claire and Gabriel did not deserve such a fate, even if Gabriel harmed Kass. Surely waking from a coma was a jarring experience. He’d return to normal. He had to.

  Michael, I spoke to him in my mind. What have you done?

  Chapter Five - Gabriel

  I stood by my window, staring out at the backyard. It wasn’t the backyard of my childhood, but it was a view I’d grown used to after moving here. To think, I used to like it here. I used to laugh here. There used to be a part of me that felt happy, the same part of me that adored Kass.

  Now? I could hardly look at her without remembering those visions. Her bonding with Crixis, the Demon who’d taken everything from her. The mere thought of them together, alone, sent fury coursing down my spine. I could feel my blood pressure rising. How could she be so stupid? Did she forget all he’d done to her?

  Either way, it didn’t matter. Not really. I saw th
e future. I knew what had to happen in order for the world to continue. I knew who had to die.

  But did it mean I’d go along with it? Did it mean I’d just do whatever I could to save the world? I was tired of saving it. For once, I wanted to watch it burn, for everyone living on it to burn with it, including Kass. A good Purifier never would think thoughts like those, but here I was, ready to throw in the towel and let the chips fall wherever they may.

  Still, even though I could hardly look at Kass, seeing Michael seconds from killing her had called to my old instincts. They were there, deep down, buried beneath the heaviness I felt after waking in the hospital. A part of me, as tiny as it was, wanted to protect Kass. She used to be everything to me. I loved her.

  How could she run to that evil, conniving Daywalker the moment I got sick? If she’d waited for me, if she’d been there when I woke, maybe I wouldn’t feel so angry and alone. Maybe I wouldn’t want to watch the world burn, I wouldn’t be so disillusioned with it all.

  Disillusioned. That’s exactly what it was. I was tired of fighting, of purifying. I didn’t want to save the world anymore. I wanted to be normal, to have normal worries. But, even if I wasn’t a Purifier, I supposed it was a pointless hope. I never was going to be normal.

  I lifted a hand to my chest, over my heart. It felt oddly heavy inside me, like it didn’t belong there. How could I ever feel normal when I wasn’t even myself? I wasn’t me. I was someone else, something else. I was the something everyone feared. I might’ve acted like a boy, like a human-turned-Purifier, but I was never as simple as that, even if I didn’t know it until now. The truth was a terrible thing, and I hated it all the same.

  I knew I was me, and yet, after waking, I felt like a stranger to myself. The soul inside me was not mine, but it was. I didn’t know him, the old me, but I did. This was a confusing show, and I wanted to turn it off. I didn’t want to play the Devil.