by Kade Cook
Footsteps rumble from beneath and thunder against the winding stairs as bodies ascend. Familiar figures manifest from the darkened corners, rushing to the scene. Voices in the room lunge at her all at once, fading into a loud white noise as Gabrian rocks back and forth, struggling with her sanity and crying out for help—her face washed in tears. Trembling, her hands clutch tightly onto her friend and she begins to mutter incoherently—stuck somewhere between shock and terror at the appalling act of thievery she has just committed.
35
LETTING GO
The suffocating stench still taints the salted air wafting in from the open windows around them, evidence that death’s scavengers have not long departed. Those who stand witness to the scene being played out in the loft are at a loss but the need to act is urgent as they take inventory of the drained life huddled within Gabrian’s arms, atop her lap.
Shane and Broghen rush to hover over the two girls—muscles tense and awaiting Ashen’s instruction. She hears soft whispers around her head but Gabrian does not respond to Ashen’s inquisitions, all she can do is mumble, drowning in the misery of what she has done.
“Gabrian, let her go. We have to get her to Ethan and Kaleb. You must let Rachael go,” Ashen pleads.
Not flinching in her grip on her friend, the logic of the words cannot find their way through the horror playing in Gabrian’s mind. All she can manage to do is sit—swaying back and forth on the floor, repeating her plea. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know. I am so sorry.”
“Gabrian, let her go,” Ashen says, her voice sounding with more authority. Reaching out and cupping the chin of the tormented girl, Ashen lifts Gabrian’s head, forcing her eyes upward to make a visual connection with her. “She is slipping and we are running out of time.”
Gabrian’s eyes blink, registering the words…barely. The white cover of flesh resting around her knuckles regains their colour as her grasp releases from Rachael’s shirt.
Ashen looks to Shane and nods. He steps forward and slides his arms under Rachael and rolls her away from Gabrian into him, snug against his chest. He reaches out to Gabrian with his gaze and in the exchange, she sees him—her wide blurry eyes telling him to guard her life with his own.
He nods and ensures her with a jagged breath. “I will. It will be all right.”
She nods back and watery understanding bursts from beneath her dark lashes, running down the glowing flesh of her cheeks.
Rushing quickly to the darkened folds at the edge of the room, Shane slips his fingertips into the shadows—cloaking their bodies within the Veil in search of a miracle.
Ashen looks at Gabrian, who is still on the floor, her legs tucked tightly to her chest. She lowers down once more, resting her hand upon the exposed flesh on Gabrian’s arm, but it’s met without response. Ashen’s eyes flash, jumping up to meet the sea green flare of Broghen’s watchful stare then returns to focus on the distraught girl. “Gabrian, it is time to go. We need to find Vaeda and Orroryn.”
The clouds hovering over Gabrian’s hazy bubble clear enough for her to understand the command just given and the jolt of not going directly to Rachael’s side jars her awake.
“What? No! I need to go to her.”
“We will, I promise, but right now we have to let Vaeda and Orroryn know what is going on. And more importantly, we need to find out what really happened.”
Gabrian’s instinct is to stand her ground and demand to be taken to her friend but she knows there is nothing she can do for her. The weight of her guilt hits her like a truck, striking down any retort she might have used to claim her case. All her efforts to push back the thirsty demon inside had finally faltered and brought her to this moment. Her pride had kept her from asking for help and now her best friend may have paid the ultimate price for her selfish mistake. With this understanding, she concedes to her Elder’s request and pushes herself up off the floor. Catching a glimpse of her image in the mirror across the room, she sees what her claim has produced. While she reflects the image of perfection within its glassy portrayal, Rachael’s vessel lay only inches away from death’s door. She rips her eyes away in horror and cast them toward the other’s filled with shame.
“Yes, of course, whatever you want.” She inhales a deep breath, no longer searching for sustenance for her inner well has run over. She surrenders herself to the large Schaeduwe eyeing her—a hitch of caution in his eye, inadvertently placing his mountainous body between her and his mate as he reaches out to clasp his hand around her tiny wrist, preparing them for the jaunt.
The ultimate sins of her Fellowship have been committed and she knows there is no way she will come out of this unscathed. With her bowed head and her lowered eyes, she readies herself—completely willing to face the wrath of those hungry to punish.
36
FLYING UNDER THE RADAR
Feeling a cool sting against his skin as the temperature drops and catching the scent of stale, lifeless air seep in around him, smothering out the aromatic smells roaming through his kitchen, Cimmerian stills his hands and looks up from his chopped green onions, gripping the red-handled porcelain knife tight between his fingers—a reflexive response to what disrupts his supper preparations.
“So, my suddenly sullen friend, how are you enjoying your quality time with our little vampire fledgling?” Adrinn settles his fleshless form upon the countertop in front of where Cimmerian has resumed his slicing and grins.
“I am not,” he answers, raising his brow and waves his free hand, shooing the unwanted pest from atop his perch with a shake of his head.
Adrinn shrugs his shoulders at his host’s dislike of his seating choice but slides off the surface, and stands, turning to gaze out the window, his mood slightly altered in response to the reply. “And why is that now? Do tell.”
Letting out a loud irritated sigh, Cimmerian slows his knife again and looks up. “Because, she is not here for me to spend time with.” And wishes he knew nothing of whom the phantom speaks.
Adrinn’s snooty smile vanishes as he wrenches his vaporous neck, turning ever-so-slightly to the side, so his glare peeks curiously at Cimmerian. “What do you mean she isn’t here? Where in the Realm is she?”
“In Canada.”
Adrinn’s brow twitches while his smoky hazel eyes remain focused on Cimmerian, his voice lowers drenched in irritation of Cimmerian’s vagueness. “Because…”
Setting his knife down, and reaching for the glass bowl resting to the left of his wooden cutting board, Cimmerian swipes the small cuts of onion into the container and places it to the side again, then prepares to slice into the sweet ripened peppers sitting within the bamboo bowl to his right.
“Because…” Adrinn hisses again, leaning into the cupboard’s surface, closing the distance between them.
He can feel the air around him thicken with the stench of Gargon toxin in Adrinn’s frustrated state, mostly because he isn’t jumping hoops to appease him. No longer able to stand the smell, Cimmerian stops fidgeting with his meal and looks up at the irritated Specter, slightly pleased at getting under its skin, so to speak. “Because she is no longer just a Boragen. She has managed to find a way to manifest yet another Realm trait.”
“Which is? Now come on, out with it, old boy—spill the beans, as I recall you have never had a problem keeping your lips sealed before.”
Cimmerian’s ebony eyes flare with Adrinn’s insinuation that he is a turncoat—a dark violet haze sparks to life at the center of his palms. Feeling the hatred return for the fiend pressing him, a growl rumbles from his throat as he reveals the girl’s secrets. “She has shown signs of having the gift of Isa.”
“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he jabs at his host. “Now remind me exactly who that entails again. Living within the toxic realm of Erebus does have its disadvantages.”
Stifling down the need to throttle the annoying presence now sitting once again on his countertop, Cimmerian sighs and moves toward the sink to remove his hands
of the scent of herbs and hopefully some of Adrinn’s stench as well. “Elder Ashen Gracie of the Ice fellowship.”
“Ah yes, Ashen. Lovely, I quite remember her.”
Cimmerian rolls his eyes and coughs in obvious irritation of the commentary.
“Hmm? Oh yes.” Crossing his legs and cupping his hands around his right knee, Adrinn’s arrogant smile returns. “Now, you were saying about the girl?”
Shaking his head, Cimmerian clenches his fists but continues just the same. “The Covenant feels that it is in the best interest of everyone involved that the girl is to stay with Ashen. One-on-one mentoring worked well with her and Ethan, so isolating her and allowing her to concentrate all her attentions on containing this task is pertinent.”
Cimmerian waits for an outburst about the Covenant involvement from his infestation but it doesn’t come. Adrinn remains silent except for the crackling of his dark smoky aura as it smolders around him. He slowly descends from his perch and slithers across the kitchen floor.
“What, no haughty retort?”
Adrinn’s eyes are pinched, focused on something not of this space—drifting far away in a place no hand can touch. His head tilts as if the words finally reach him and glances toward the question. “Hmm? Oh, no. Not at all. Quite the contrary, actually. I am just finding this new development to be quite interesting.” He rubs his intangible digits across the bottom of his jaw and looks away again, caught once again in some kind of trance. “Quite interesting indeed.”
“What is so interesting about that? I am sure that when you were…well, solid and here in this realm” —Cimmerian scans Adrinn’s translucent form and flicks his hands out at the lack of it, still trying to figure out his odd delight with the information— “that you must have seen this before. Many of our younglings develop other gifts and traits different of their own Fellowship. This is mediocre at best.”
Ceasing his internal journey, Adrinn’s eyes rush to meet Cimmerian’s puzzled stare. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this so-called mediocracy, as you call it. Something tells me there may be reason to pay this some consideration.”
Turning his back to his unwanted guest, Cimmerian gathers other ingredients in need of chopping—happy for the distraction. “That is the last thing I want to do. Showing any interest in the girl will only cause more attention to come to me and I want nothing to do with that. After your little display and obvious intent to destroy any kind of peace in my life, once again, I prefer to slip completely under the radar—avoiding this girl like the plague.”
Slithering his way back around the counter, Adrinn heaves himself back atop the counter—aiding in his host’s sudden irritation. “Ah, my dear man, slipping neatly under is one thing, but completely disappearing is quite another.” His eyes flicker, a haze of gold burns at the edges of his black dilated pupils. “Let me put it to you this way—if you slip too far beneath the radar, someone might just notice, don’t you think?”
Releasing a deep sigh, Cimmerian knows he has a point but continues to stand mute.
“And, stepping out of character is the easiest way to get noticed.”
This truth stirs Cimmerian from his chopping. His hands cease their task but his fingers remain in action, squeezing the red handle in efforts to contain his emotions. “Caspyous will deal with the girl. He shares my detesting of the Boragen. I will let him handle the issue with the Borrower.”
“Caspyous? Who is this exactly?”
“He is the elder to the Hydor Fellowship.”
“What happened to Théoden?” Twisting his head to the side in thought, a sinister grin slides across Adrinn’s face in his recovered memories. “Oh yes, never mind. I remember. I ripped his essence clean off his bones the night you all came to destroy me. Pity. Nevertheless, his loss was a necessary measure for my imminent survival. Without his gracious donation to my cause, you would not have the joy of sharing in my delightful company now.”
Shaking his head with a roll of his eyes, Cimmerian returns to his preparations. “Don’t you mean blackmail?”
“Tomato…Tomauto!”
The air between the two foes is dumped with a heavy scent of the undead, surrounding them with a violent pulse pushing against their souls. Their eyes reach for each other in reaction to the unexpected disruption in the rift between dimensions.
Cimmerian’s hands slam down on the countertop, cracking the eerie silence between them. “What did you do now?”
Adrinn’s eyes widen with Cimmerian’s immediate insinuation of his involvement in the oddity. “Do not look at me like that, with those black, beady eyes of yours,” he huffs, stuffing his arms together across his chest, lifting his chin in a sulk. “I did nothing.”
Cimmerian’s brow twists and looks down his nose at the sullen monster across from him.
Adrinn turns his head to meet Cimmerian’s glare. “Seriously, you think I have something to do with this? I have been right here…with you.”
“That is merely circumstantial. Whenever things have gone wrong as of late, it has your stench all over it.”
Adrinn sucks in a loud sulking breath, pretending to be insulted. “Now that is a bit harsh now, don’t you think?”
Cimmerian raises an irritated brow at the questioning fiend and delivers his answer with an icy glare. “No!”
37
PRE-TRIAL CONFESSION
Inhaling slowly, Gabrian’s mind still reels with tangled truths that she struggles to believe, her palms still sore and charred from the unexpected magic she somehow summoned from deep within—annihilating the presence of death’s scavengers and thwarting their efforts to steal what was left of Rachael’s soul.
Quickly rushed to Vaeda’s side by Ashen and Broghen, Gabrian tries to manifest a coherent recall of the events that just took place but not truly knowing herself causes her to fumble in her pre-trial confession. She cannot concentrate on the task at hand. All she can think about is getting to Rachael—somehow.
Her body screams out when the wards enclosing the Covenant of Shadows strangle her essence and confine its wildness into the vessel it is attached to—jarring her mind awake and alerting her of where she is. Her heart grinds at first but it succeeds to the depths of despair her thoughts carry. She deserves to be here. She deserves to be punished.
She is a monster.
Every footstep she takes echoes through the great hall, pounding in her ears. She can already hear the inner heckling coming from the crowd gathered around the dreaded High table—the deciders of her fate. Ashen ushers her to her usual spot and gives her arm a gentle squeeze—Gabrian barely registers it. The friendly, reassuring ‘Just Breathe’ motto normally delivered to her in these instances doesn’t come. Her eyes focus to seek out the source of silence—finding the Elder’s seat empty. Ethan is not in attendance, he is needed elsewhere because of her foolish and selfish pride.
Her eyes shift to find some sign of an ally around the table, hoping that Kaleb might lend her a gentle smile, but his seat is vacant as well. There is only Vaeda and Orroryn in attendance to aid in her defence, their words of warning echoing loudly.
Do not reveal who you truly are, it will be a slaughter if you do.
Snarling words rip her and she prepares for the onslaught about to occur.
“Trouble just seems to follow you everywhere.” Cold and piercing eyes lift from their resting gaze to narrow in on her, making the hair on the back of her neck bite against her flesh from the ice wrapped around each word. “It’s astounding at how oddly coincidental all this is…don’t you think?” Caspyous slides forward—retiring from his artic glare toward her—and directs his instigative glances around the table as he delivers his twisted inquiry. “I am not one to judge but it makes me wonder what else is going on that she is hiding.”
Not waiting for permission to speak, she sits up and glares at Caspyous in defiance—bursting out her only words of defence. “I am not hiding anything.”
“Oh, I disagree, youngling,” he says, s
liding his cold menacing eyes back to rest upon her. “I think there is much more to you than what appears.” The words monstrosity and abomination silently assault her mind from her Elder’s unspoken hatred for her kind as his lips curl into a twisted sneer.
The heat beneath her skin surfaces and her alabaster skin glows with a hint of rose. Locking down her inner most fears within the caverns of her mind, she secures herself. If this is how the trial is going to start out, then she better hunker down for the storm.
The inquiry is long and cruel. Throughout the entire gong show of a trial, she hears the minds whisper their attacks on her and who she is—what she has done. ‘That thing,’ Demon, and Vampire are among the slander but the one that stings the most is Abomination. She defends herself as best she can but unable to remember anything other than fighting off the Gargons, her strife is in vain—with no ground to stand on, she sits as quietly as she can, unsure of her future.
The meeting goes on for what seems like hours. She is dismissed temporarily while the Elders speak in private. Rumbles of conspiracy venture through the halls along with whispers of what really may flow through her veins, floating freely into her mind. They are able to shut out most of the onlookers within the walls of the Covenant, but they cannot hide all from those minds that cannot be contained. Disgust and outrage flares wildly at the very possibility that this orphan—this nobody—might contain magic of great power. It is ludicrous—completely preposterous—whispers some while others feel a subtle whim of hope settle into their thoughts.
With only Orroryn and Vaeda knowing the truth of her heritage, they understand this could very well be a possibility and lend an encouraging message to the group without revealing the whole truth. With Cera being gone for so long, maybe it is a glimpse of a small miracle. The growth of negativity in the Realm is spreading, especially since the return of the very demon their beloved Silver Mage had saved them from. The truth of life is based on the fact that there must be a balance and Mother Nature always has a way of finding that balance—a way of maintaining control, regardless of the cost.