My Heart be Damned

by Gray, Chanelle

  “Amerie,” the one in the middle said. She stepped forward, arms out as if to hug me. The lead Sister.

  I backed away.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said. I imagined her to be smiling, though I couldn’t be sure that was the case.

  “I’m not afraid,” I lied. “Being afraid would mean I’ve done something wrong. And I haven’t done anything.”

  “No one said you did anything wrong,” she continued. “We came to warn you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Warn me about what?”

  “Someone has been hiding you from us. Someone who means you harm.” Someone? No, I’d hidden myself. They were wrong. “This was the only way we knew to find you. We knew eventually you’d come out of hiding, in order to find Seal and try to stop him. We knew you’d come for the Coat of Tarham. So we enchanted it ensuring that just one touch would bring you here. To us.”

  I tried to make sense of what they were saying. I wasn’t hidden from them. Marshall had told me that they’d finally found me and were trying to find me a mentor. He’d told me that. Otherwise, how else would he know about me? Why would he be protecting me?

  “I don’t understand.”

  She stepped forward once again, and I was surrounded by such warmth and love that I was instantly at ease. Everything in me relaxed although my mind still whirled.

  “Our prophet foresaw your downfall. We’ve come to warn you.”

  “My downfall. Seal?”

  She shook her head. “Not Seal, though he will be a difficult fight for you.” She paused, as if readying me. “Perhaps it might if I show you instead?”

  Her hand whipped out and closed around my forearm. The touch burned, and I yelled out. The ground whipped out from beneath me, and the pain vanished, as did the weird garden place. Suddenly, I was in a graveyard that I knew well – Montesore graveyard.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, stepping away from her. The other two Sisters stood behind us, silent.

  “I know why you trust this Damned so much,” she began. “But you cannot trust him. Trusting him will only lead to your death and to his immortality.”

  “The Damned are already immortal,” I argued. “I have nothing to do with that. The soul lives on when the body doesn’t. You know that.”

  “That’s true. A Damned soul can live on, both here and in Hell. But a half-Damned soul will not survive for very long – the body can’t handle the strain. In fact, we’ve estimated their survival to be maybe thirty years maximum. A half-Damned soul is born into a human body. Once that body dies, the soul cannot outlast it.”

  I thought back to the book I’d been reading that mentioned half-Damned souls. The one I hadn’t believed. “So there is such a thing,” I muttered, mainly to myself.

  “One has its eye on you.”

  “I don’t trust any half Damned souls, thanks,” I snapped. “And I still don’t know why we’re here.”

  Suddenly, in the scene that stretched out before me, a person darted out of a crypt at the top of a hill. A girl. Around my age with dark hair and tanned skin.... I watched her leap over the fence, and then keep running without missing a beat. Something inside me stirred.

  It was me.

  That was just a few months ago. Back before I started Hunting again. I started forward, walking straight through a gravestone in front of me. I stopped short when out from the shadows, a man appeared, staring after the other me. I’d recognize that mop of black hair anywhere.

  “Marshall?”

  “Is that him?” the lead Sister asked.

  I nodded. “You should know his name. He’s a Hunter, like me. You were the ones who sent him to watch over me, right? Told him to guide me until you found me a mentor? Or did you make the order and not bother to check into who he was, who I was?”

  “We gave no such order, Amerie,” she said gently. “We lost track of you when your mother died, and when we finally managed to find you again, you were hidden from us again by some sort of magic. By him.”

  I spun to stare at her, the light from her face blinding me momentarily. “Marshall hid me from you? How? Why?”

  “There are no such things as male Hunters,” the Sister said, ignoring my questions. “Only females can be Hunters. Did you not learn this at a young age?”

  “Yes, but he’s one of a kind...” Panic began to swell up inside of me. “He is one of a kind, right? Right?”

  She shook her head slowly, and behind her, the others copied. I stepped forward, my hands balling into fists.

  “Tell me what’s happening,” I hissed. “Or I swear to God....”

  “Before our time runs out, I’ll tell what you need to know to find answers for yourself. The thing you call Marshall is half-Damned. He’s learned he needs Hunter blood to be immortal. Make no mistake, we did not send him to you, but now that we know where you are, we’ll be sending a mentor to help you. You do not have to be alone.”

  My blood turned cold. Marshall was half-Damned. I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it. But then things started to add up in my head. How at home he seemed in a fight club full of Damned. The dark feeling I’d first felt when I met him. Why he didn’t want to leave me alone with Albert. Why the Damned I’d fought had told me to watch out for Marshall.

  I gasped, breathing becoming harder to do. I doubled over, clutching at my chest and trying to suck deep breaths in. I didn’t even notice when we teleported back to the weird never-ending garden. Stumbling away from the women until the backs of my knees eventually hit the marble fountain and I sat down hard, my dress spreading out all around me.

  Marshall was evil. He was evil, and he wanted to kill me.

  “But why?” I choked out. “Why me? Why make me fall for him?”

  “Please don’t let this distract you from your task,” the lead Sister said. “You must destroy the Coat of Tarham. Smash it. That’s the only way. Remember, it can be put together again if they get all of the pieces.”

  The garden began to shimmer. I wasn’t sure whether it was my own grief and betrayal that was turning me crazy, or just the fact that time undoubtedly was running out.

  “We will meet again,” they all said in unison.

  I didn’t feel too encouraged by that. “Thanks for dropping this on me.”

  “You wouldn’t be who you are today unless you were strong enough to handle this,” the lead Sister said softly. They all held up their right hands in a farewell gesture, and then they and the garden disappeared until I was back in the mansion, in exactly the same place, the statue still in my arms. I stared down at it, my whole body in shock.

  Marshall. Marshall. Marshall. All I saw was his face.

  Then the door burst open, and I whirled around. Miranda, the Damned from the night Albert’s home burned, and two other Damned stood in the doorway, glaring at me. I clutched the statue tighter to my chest and pushed thoughts of Marshall to the back of my mind.

  “I thought you’d be in here,” Miranda said, stepping forward. “Oh, and nice dress”

  I noticed none of them had elected to dress for the occasion. She stepped forward, swinging an axe in her left hand; the other two held weapons too. My two daggers were not going to do well against them.

  “Nice bruise,” I said, indicating to her swollen right eye. “Seal not too impressed with you letting me get away?”

  She growled. “Don’t you talk like you understand, little girl.”

  “I understand me, whooping your ass. Up for round two?”

  She ran forward, axe swinging for my head. I ducked, but she swung it back around and I fell into a shelving unit behind me when I tried to jump out of the way. The whole thing tipped over, and I went with it.

  The axe came down at me. I deflected it, and then kicked Miranda in the stomach. That gave me the chance to roll off the shelves and onto the floor. One of the other Damned rushed me, a baseball bat high above his head. Still clutching the statue, I sidestepped the attack and rammed my elbow in his face. He grunted an
d swung the bat at me again. I rolled out of the way, and the man holding the bat, unable to stop his swing, hit the other Damned that had been coming up behind me. He fell hard, and he didn’t get up again.

  Fighting with one hand was a lot harder than I’d realized, and both Miranda and the other man had weapons. I needed to smash this damn statue, but I couldn’t do it around them in case they gathered the pieces. I eyed them both advancing on me, and decided to make a break for it. I picked up one of the expensive vases and threw it at Miranda before running out of the room.

  In my panic, I couldn’t remember the escape route. I took a complete guess, began to run down the hallway, and ducked into a room at the very end. It was a master bedroom, a remarkably well decorated one at that, but it only had one exit. I’d trapped myself.

  Frantically, I spun around in circles until I spotted the open French doors, leading out onto a balcony. A swimming pool sprawled beyond. The kinds you see in music videos on TV.

  Kicking off my shoes, I sucked in a deep breath. Then I began to run. With every step that I took, my plan began to look sillier. What if I missed the water and hit the edge?

  No time to change my mind, I ran through the open doors and launched myself over the balcony wall and slipped into a dive, statue clutched tightly in both hands. The water was warm when I glided through it. Heated – nice touch. I surfaced, and the crisp night air pinched at my wet skin, making it feel like tiny little pinpricks stabbing at my face.

  I swam to the edge and hoisted myself out, eyes sweeping the area to make sure the coast was clear. As soon as I darted around to the side of the mansion, my adrenaline started to lag and everything about my night came rushing back to me. I’d met the Sisterhood! Not even my mother had. And oddly enough, all I wanted to do was run back and tell Marshall.

  A sob bubbled in my throat, and I swallowed it down, determined not to cry. Things were never going to work out between us, so in a way this should have been a blessing in disguise. So why was part of me desperately hoping that the Sisterhood was wrong? That there was some kind of explanation?

  I stared down at the statue in my hands. It made me think of Marshall. Of how happy he would be once he found out that I had it. Anger flared inside me, and I threw the statue against the wall with as much force as I could muster up. It shattered upon impact, breaking into tiny pieces.

  “Amerie?”

  I spun around, coming face to face with Sam. His hands were shoved in his trouser pockets, and his face was...well, his face was livid. His eyes were fixed to the mess of clay on the ground.

  “Was that...” His voice cracked. He shook his head and tried again. “Was that my mum’s statue?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Amerie. Tell me that wasn’t her statue. Tell me that you didn’t just smash the precise thing she’s looked so hard to find. The very thing that is the reason she’s even here tonight!” He stepped forward and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me slightly. I barely even felt it. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Sam, I...” I stopped, knowing there was nothing I could say. How would I begin to explain this? His hands dropped from my shoulders, and I shivered and circled my own arms around my body, trying to seek warmth from them.

  “You’re messed up, you know that?” Sam hissed. “You’re worse than messed up. You’re...you’re...well, you’re something so fucking bad that I can’t think of any names.”

  “Oh, I have a few names for her,” came a voice from behind him.

  My eyes widened as Miranda stepped out of the shadows, the other two Damned still following close behind. Without warning, she swung the blunt end of the axe at Sam’s head, knocking him to the ground. I dropped to his side, feeling for a pulse and sighed in relief when I found one.

  I looked up just in time to see the axe coming for my own head. I swayed after the blow, my surroundings looking remarkably distorted, and then everything faded to black.

  Chapter Thirty

  Cane Hill

  Wherever I was, I floated in some kind of black abyss. Until a tug began to lurch me out. I didn’t want to leave. The darkness was nice, empty. I didn’t feel anything. In the abyss, I could well and truly float with no meaningful thoughts to speak of anymore.

  My cheeks were sore, and the blackness slowly sucked away, replaced with a fuzzy image of a room in severe disrepair. A hand came towards my face, and on reflex, I blocked it and swung out with my elbow.

  “Ouch! Fuck!”

  Marshall? I shook my head until my vision cleared and then rolled off the weird kind of bed I’d been lying on. I backed away from him until my legs hit something hard. Another bed. What the hell? I turned in a slow circle, surveying the space.

  The room consisted of six beds with plastic covered blue mattresses. Above the beds were metal rods, where torn, cream curtains hung. The beige walls were cracked and filthy. Dirty blue curtains framed the three grimy windows on the far wall and the bare floor was covered in shards of glass and undeterminable stains. Was this some kind of hospital?

  “We’re in an old asylum,” Marshall answered, as if reading my thoughts. “A place called Cane Hill. I never thought Seal would hide out here. Security is supposed to be heavy on this place.”

  I ignored him. Glass pinched my bare feet, but I couldn’t focus on that right now. Danger was way too close in the form of two different nemeses.

  “You’re Damned,” I said.

  His face fell. “What?”

  “You’re Damned. Or half-Damned, rather.” I fixed my eyes on him, letting the hate inside of me reflect out onto him.

  “How...who told you that? It’s not true.” He edged towards me, and I braced myself.

  “Don’t lie to me!” I shouted. “All you’ve ever done is lie to me. Be a man and tell me the truth for once.”

  “Amerie, I’m not lying...”

  I grabbed a discarded phone and threw it at his head. He dodged it easily.

  “The Sisterhood paid me a little visit,” I hissed, my chest heaving. Something throbbed on my head, and I reached up to touch it. My fingers coming back red.

  “The Sisterhood?” Marshall repeated. His face paled. “What did they say?”

  “That you need my blood for some kind of ritual to make you immortal,” I shouted, and Marshall flinched.

  “Amerie, listen.”

  “Don’t come near me!” I shouted as he darted around the bed and lunged for me. I broke out of his hold, and slammed my fist so hard into his face that, for a second, I thought I’d smashed right through him.

  He staggered back and blood splattered from his nose. But it didn’t take him long to come at me again. I turned to run and slipped on something wet, falling flat on my face. Before I could get up, he was on my back, grabbing my flailing arms and pinning me down with Damned strength.

  “Stop struggling,” he demanded. “I need you to be calm and hear me out before you make up your mind.”

  “Attacking me is really going to calm me down,” I grunted sarcastically. I threw my head back and connected with his face. He groaned and I elbowed him again in the chest before sliding out from beneath him. As soon as I was on my feet, I ran for the door at the other end of the room.

  His shoulder slammed into my back and I fell forward, banging my head on the corner of one of the metal bed frames. The blow reopened my previous head wound, and the mixture of pain dazed me, slowing my reflexes. Hands closed around my shoulders. He threw me onto the mattress. Marshall straddled my waist, holding my hands locked above my head.

  “Stop making so much noise!” he hissed. “Do you want them to come down here and tie you up? If they find me in here too, I’m not going to be able to save you. They’ll kill me.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Save me? Save my blood for yourself, you mean.”

  Marshall sighed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Is anything about you real? Did you ever tell me any truth at all?” I asked, the sadness hittin
g me again.

  His grip never once slacked. “Yes. Mostly everything I told you was real. I acted like myself but…I started off with the intent to deceive you.”

  “You’re evil.”

  “I’m not. Half-Damned souls aren’t automatically evil.” He paused. “Look, if I let you go, will you promise not to fight me? I need you to understand before anything happens to one of us. Please?”

  “Why do you care that I understand your reasoning behind being a prick?”

  “Just promise Amerie.”

  “I promise,” I said, only because it might be my only chance of escape.

  His hands loosened, and he pulled me up into a sitting position. Then he stepped back and flopped down on the bed opposite, close enough that he could grab me quickly if I tried to get away.

  “I found out what I was when I was sixteen,” he started. “My powers developed exponentially, every year from my childhood, unlike yours. My mum knew what was happening to me, but she wouldn’t fully explain until she thought I was old enough to handle it.” He ran his hands through his hair. His face was pale, as if he wanted to be sick. “She was raped by one of the Damned. I don’t want to think about how horrible that was. She didn’t know it was possible to fall pregnant from it, but somehow... it happened.”

  I held in a gasp, both sorry for what his mother had gone through and still wary of Marshall’s intentions.

  “Once she explained everything to me and gave me all the books she had on the Damned and about being a Hunter, I became obsessed with knowing everything there was to know. I trained relentlessly, wanting to embrace my new powers and my Damned and Hunter heritage. But I still didn’t know anything about what I was.

  “That’s when I met Albert. Originally, he found rare books for me and then one day, he helped with a text I that I had some trouble deciphering. Imagine my surprise when it said that half-Damned souls don’t survive long in the human world. Thirty years maximum. Then I don’t go to Heaven or Hell. I just... cease to exist.” He stopped and shook his head mournfully. I almost felt sorry for him.