by JP Epperson
Our number one priority right now was keeping Teddy out of the reach of the demons. We were holding our own just fine, despite the fact we were very outnumbered.
Then I heard Anna speak in a whisper to Teddy. She obviously didn’t realize how keen our sense of hearing is.
“Come on, Teddy. How do we even know if we can trust these supposed warriors? We’ll hide, I can keep us safe.”
“I don’t know, Anna, I think we can . . .” Theodore started but suddenly he recoiled from her slightly. “Anna, what’s happening? You look dark somehow, like the ones that kept us locked up.”
I looked at her face—he was right. A horrible thought began to percolate in my mind.
“It must be some sort of trick, to make you think you can’t trust me.” Anna mumbled some words under her breath and her face lightened again. “There, now you can see my true color. Come on, Teddy, give me your hand, and I’ll get you out of here.”
“No,” I screamed, realizing at last what was going on. “Theodore, don’t trust her. I will keep you safe.”
He looked confused. I was relieved, and I made to stretch my hand out to him so he could take it. But at the same time, Anna extended her hand. Theodore looked between me and Anna. I opened my mouth again to plead with him, but it was too late. He took her hand.
Anna smiled triumphantly. For a moment, I didn’t understand. They had already kidnapped him—why the need for the ruse? And then it hit me. Theodore had to make the decision himself. He had to choose. For whatever reason, taking him against his will hadn’t been enough. He had to go of his own free will and make a conscious decision to join, and he had just done that. Anna winked at me and suddenly the two of them were gone in a haze of colored smoke, her laughter trailing behind them. The surviving demons vanished as soon as Anna and Theodore disappeared
“Dammit!” I roared as I hurled a dagger, which pierced the wall directly behind the spot where Anna’s head was before she disappeared.
“Fucking bitch.” Colton spat blood. “Did you hear that cackle? It was Sloan. How did we not see it? Even through that disguise.”
“She played her part well,” Nicholai murmured as he sheathed his weapons. His eyes were distant and I knew his head was in the past. He would kill Sloan one day and I would help him. As would Colton, I was certain. I could never forgive her for her part in the death of Lorileigh. I’d lost my best friend because of Sloan. I didn’t know for certain if I’d ever see Lori again, but I had faith I would one day.
“If she’s roaming free, that must mean . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. If Sloan was free, that meant the most powerful witch I’d ever known was dead.
“Who is Sloan?” Olivia asked.
“She is a witch,” Nicholai answered in a low voice. “And she is very skilled in the dark arts.” He paused before speaking again. “She is a dead witch walking, and she is mine.”
His tone was quiet and full of the promise of a painful death. I had never heard him sound so hostile. It frightened me—not because I was scared of Nicholai, but because I was sad for my friend. All of us warriors started with some innocence, but with each creature battled or demon fought, a piece of our innocence is lost until all that is left is someone like me. I have no innocence. There is only a job. It does not faze me to kill my former brethren. Aside from Colton and Nich should one of the very people I trust in this room turn, I would not hesitate to put out the light in their eyes. I wouldn’t like having to do it but I could and would do it without second glance. That is the only thought that saddens me. The fact that I truly am the cold-hearted killing machine that I am feared to be.
Somehow, Nicholai managed to preserve his innocence—or so I had thought. I could see now, as I looked at my old friend, that I was wrong. I had missed it, and I was angry that the case had kept me from realizing that a piece of Nicholai had broken as well. I hated that for him, and I would make those who stole his innocence pay for it.
I felt my eyes darken and vowed to bring all those who had hurt Nicholai to a level of pain they had never imagined. I looked to Colton and then to Talon. They both saw what I saw in Nicholai. They heard the darkness in his voice. We could not make things right—once lost, innocence cannot be retrieved—but we would seek out vengeance in his name.
“And you shall have her, old friend,” Talon said in his deep voice as he placed a hand on Nicholai’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Colton said, also placing a hand on Nicholai.
“Yes, you shall have her.” I placed my hand on top of Colton’s.
He looked to all of us and then met my eyes. He nodded. There was no light in his eyes. There was no hint of doubt, no gleam of laughter. There was no innocence left.
Liam and Olivia did not know of our past with Sloan, but they knew there was one, and they could see the pain in Nicholai’s eyes. They did not ask again what happened or who she was. They simply walked to us, and each placed a hand next to mine as they vowed in unison, “So it shall be.”
Nicholai nodded, briefly touching our hands before removing himself from our grasp and walking away. The rest of us averted our eyes, but not before seeing the confirmation of a pact formed. We finally saw the loss in the hooded eyes of our fellow warrior, and we would not stop until we helped him seek his vengeance. We could never undo the loss, we could never ease the pain, and we could never bring back Lorileigh. But what we could do was hunt down every single soul involved in the death of our beloved warrior.
As our eye contact broke from the unspoken promise we had just made, our minds drifted. Sloan’s laughter brought back those dreadful memories. Lorileigh did not just die or get killed in combat. It was a brutal attack and betrayal by trusted allies. Suddenly, I was back to that day. That awful day.
“Where’s Lori?” I had asked Nicholai as I walked into the kitchen of their apartment. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. The four of us were working on a case. Nothing too crazy, nothing out of the ordinary. Someone was hunting angels and we were hunting them. The problem was, we didn’t know how they were finding the angels. The angels being hunted were not just random angels that had been spotted. They were Angels of Destiny hidden in plain sight—undercover, if you will—because they were helping lost souls.
We had just followed a lead from a witch we were working with. The lead was solid and led us right to the guilty party. He tried to fight his way through us, but we captured him, questioned him, and were ready to kill him after he proudly admitted his guilt. Without speaking or even making contact, we all agreed that this was too easy. Back then, the four of us were connected to each other the same way Colton and I are once again connected. To my knowledge, there has never been a group of warriors that worked together and were completely connected the way we were. Warriors generally worked in pairs. I was unaware of any other group like ours. We were special. We were our own little family.
The demon refused to give us any information, knowing that he was dead no matter what. We did not make deals with the bad guys. It was simply a matter of choosing between a swift death and a painful death. The demon opted for the latter, and we did not disappoint. There was no reason for all of us to participate, so Nicholai and I left, leaving Colton and Lorileigh to handle things there while we sought out other leads. We were all to meet at Nich and Lori’s place two hours later.
Our search turned up another dead end. So I went back to the condo Colton and I shared to shower before rendezvousing at the apartment as planned. Neither Nich nor I were worried that our lovers were late. But as time went by, we could not help but to become slightly concerned. They were over two hours late at that point. Colton and Lorileigh had both turned off their emotions to us. I absolutely hated that, but understood that it was sometimes necessary. It is similar to when a human turns off their cell phone when their boss comes into their office, and the spouse panics thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened. When we have a rapid change in our emotions, it can
alert those connected to us. So when we are close to solving a case, we often shut down the connection so no one shows up to rescue us and jeopardizes the mission.
Before I knew it, four hours had gone by since the time we were supposed to meet, and we had heard nothing from Colton and Lorileigh. Usually we don’t panic in the way that humans do, but I was stressing. The lack of any bad feeling in my gut gave me a bad feeling. I could not sit still, but we had no clue where they could be. I had already emerged at the spot we had left them, and there was no sign of them whatsoever. Nicholai told me to relax—that maybe they did end up getting a lead from the demon, but though his words were meant to be reassuring, I could see the uneasiness in his eyes. Not to mention he was stressed to the point that he had not been able to shut down the connection between us completely. I was still getting an echo of his feelings.
We had no reason to panic. This wasn’t the first time one of us had been hours late. There was no logical reason to assume anything bad happened when we hadn’t had any bad vibes but Nicholai felt something was off. That was enough for me. I trusted Nicholai. He was my partner. We were not lovers, but we were all partners. The four of us trusted each other completely. It is a concept that no human could ever grasp. No human trusts another human completely, fully, and undoubtedly. No matter how much love humans feel for one another, they never trust through and through. That is not to say they do not love greatly—they absolutely do. Some even love unconditionally, but there is always the existence of some type of doubt. Doubt of faithfulness, doubt that their loved one will always be there for them, doubt that a child will still love the parent after meeting their soulmate, doubt that the child will return the care of the parent when the time comes. There is always some sort of doubt, no matter how much the humans try to hide it.
With the four us, there was no doubt. We truly trusted one another. We knew each other both in and out. We knew what each other was feeling, sometimes even before we knew what we were feeling ourselves. So when Nicholai felt it was a bad idea to inform the archangel about Colton and Lorileigh, I trusted his feelings and kept my mouth shut. It was a choice that would forever haunt us.
We tried to be patient but our lovers were five hours late. Nicholai and I suited up, weapons from head to toe. Unable to sit still and wait any longer, we went back to the place we left them. We knew it would be useless. There was nothing there but we had no idea where else to start. This time, we did get a clue. There was no sign of Colton, Lori, or the demon, but there was still evidence of his torture. The scene was still not cleaned. Before they left, Colton and Lorileigh would have called for cleaners. They would have come and gone hours ago. That meant something got in their way before they were able to call it in. I looked for footprints in the blood, as I had done when I came back earlier, but there was no sign of anyone else besides Colton and Lori. Although, that didn’t really mean anything when it came to angels and demons.
Nicholai and I searched in silence. I was ready to give up the search when all of a sudden, I heard something that sounded like the soft whistle of wind blowing. Nicholai caught my eye and I knew he heard it too. We were in an old abandoned building in a bad part of town. No one came out in this neighborhood after dark except criminals, so it was eerily quiet. Though it was an old building, all of the windows were in place; there should have been no breeze. I followed the source of the breeze, which led to the brick wall in the back of the building.
I started running toward the wall with Nicholai right behind me when suddenly we heard the screaming voice of a woman crying for help. It was difficult to decipher what she was saying through her rambling hysterical sobs, but it sounded something along the lines of “got lost and mugged by a bloody man.” Nicholai and I would have just ignored her and went about our search if the woman had not mentioned a man covered in blood. We weren’t heartless, but it was not our place to intervene every time a person screamed help. For one, we would never get our jobs done, but mainly we are supposed to let the humans go through life uninterrupted unless otherwise directed.
Unfortunately, that means often allowing the humans to meet dreadful fates. Sadly, my heart was hardened enough that it usually did not faze me anymore, unless there were children involved. I still had hard time sitting by when children were in need of help. I had been on the wrong side of the Angels of Decision a few times for intervening, but I had no regrets.
We changed our direction mid-run and headed for the woman in trouble. The bloody man could be just a human, or it could have had something to do with our partners. When we reached the woman, she said something like “Help, he went that way!” and pointed down the street. I took off, leaving Nicholai with the girl. I went in stealth so I could use my ability, but I came up empty-handed. There was no sound, no movement, and no evidence that anyone had recently been down this street. It wasn’t adding up. I turned around when suddenly I felt like someone drove a hot poker into my chest. I fell to my knees against the pavement. I looked down automatically, but there was no wound. I was unharmed.
Then it hit me. Colton was hurt—badly hurt—and I was feeling his pain. I knew immediately that the girl was a decoy, but she was not a demon otherwise we would have known. I ran as fast as my ability would allow me to get back to Nicholai. I forgot I was in stealth and that Nicholai could not see me until we collided. He was hunched over and clutching his heart, and I knew he was feeling the same thing I felt moments before.
“They’re hurt,” he wheezed. “We’re out of time . . . girl was distraction.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “We were close or they wouldn’t have sent the girl.”
Nicholai jumped up and we took off for the back end of the building where we’d heard the breeze. The wall was cracked, but there was nothing on the other side except for the alley I’d just run through. Nicholai followed the line of the crack and saw something at our feet. There was dust everywhere, except one tiny spot where the wall met the floor. That was it—it had to be. I was going to search for the opening, but suddenly I collapsed and fell to my knees again. Colton was badly hurt. Nicholai caught me, and I saw the panic in his eyes. He didn’t bother to check for witnesses as he blasted his ice over the area we were sure was an opening. It iced over, and he kicked it down with unmatchable strength. The hatch swung open with a crash and led to an unlit staircase.
We wasted no time racing down the hidden staircase. It went on for quite a ways. When we finally reached the bottom, I knew we had to be several hundred feet underground. We took off, not knowing where we were headed, and finally reached a room, which we barreled into.
A deafening scream from behind me pierced my heart. I gagged, fighting the vomit that threatened to come up violently. I knew what it was before I turned to see Nicholai, ghostly white and fallen to his knees. A wicked bout of laughter caught my attention, making me turn back toward the room just in time to see the decoy woman from the street cackling as her body morphed into a tall, thin beauty with blood-red hair that fell past her waist. She was a witch. A very powerful witch . . . and she was supposed to be one of the good guys.
“I’m afraid you arrived just moments too late. I am sorry. I was rooting for you.” She spoke in a luscious voice.
“Sloan?” I gasped. The betrayal hit me like a dump truck. Sloan was our ally. We had worked with her dozens of times. This made no sense. She had helped us time and time again.
She stepped aside, and this time it was my scream that echoed through the hidden room. Side by side, Colton and Lorileigh hung from the wall. Suspended not by any device, but by their own limbs. Demonic relics pierced each arm and leg to the brick wall behind them. I did not want to look from Colton to Lori. There was blood everywhere, splattered from the ceiling to the floor. Large puddles of blood saturated the ground beneath them both. Droplets of it were everywhere we looked. It was then that I realized that Sloan’s hair really was blood-red. It dripped with every laugh. She had bathed in the blood of our lovers. Colton, barely alive, with op
en wounds covering every inch of his body, was moaning barely decipherable words.
“You better kill me now. Kill me now. Kill me now, or I’m going to cause you more pain than you can ever imagine. I swear on everything that is good in this world, I will skin you alive. I will heal you and do it again and again and again.”
Tears streamed down his face, mixing with his blood, and his words gave me the courage to look at my beloved friend. She hung there, eyes wide open but empty of all life. Her beautiful blonde locks surrounded her face, falling past her shoulders. The curled ends sat perfectly as though she was posed, and I knew that she had been. Blood stained the ends. I knew now why Colton had made that promise to Sloan. I walked to Lorileigh slowly. She was skinned from neck to waist. Skinned down to the meat. Her chest had been cut open, and where her beautiful heart should have been, there was instead a crushed organ, seeping the still-warm life fluid. We were only moments late—just moments. The moments it took for Sloan to lead us the other way.
I turned slowly. I knew she was not the one who did it. Whoever actually did had vanished, but it did not matter. She caused this. She was responsible for this. Nicholai stood, and there was a darkness in him that scared me, but it was a darkness we both shared. He had not gone to Lori. He knew it without looking, but he was not ready to face it yet. He looked to me for confirmation that his beloved Lori was dead, but there was no hope in his eyes. I did not need to give him the nod that I did. We were not supposed to kill witches. We were supposed to call our elders. I was not going to be doing that that day. It would not have been the first time I killed someone I wasn’t supposed to. Nicholai was always against that; always a supporter of the rules. But not this time. Not this time.