A/N the girl I dedicated this to has passed. I'm going to keep her actual identity to myself, but, Sandrah-with-an-h as she called herself, you were truly a wonderful kid. You made me proud to be a writer. As someone who is chronically ill, I am sorry you lost the battle, but you were a strong kid until the end. <3
(Warning, there is some heavily implied sexy-stuff going on at one point. Noooo, not between Khiara and Cael. But you'll see!)
When Cael is done crying, he grabs my face and passionately kisses me, making my head spin, and then kisses my nose, forehead, both cheeks.
"Will you guys get a room already?" says Lisa.
"We're in a room," mumbles Cael against my lips, which he's worked his way back to, and then to me, "thank you for not telling me on the phone. This was the absolute best thing to walk into, though I almost had a fucking heart attack."
Samael laughs from across the room. "Good thing we can't die from those."
Cael kisses my forehead again, stands up and is hugging his sister, almost in one fluid movement.
"I thought you were dead," he says. "I wanted to believe you were alive, but I gave up. Ehohpeh-han, Samael."
Samael pulls away from the hug, places her hand on her brother's head and says, "No sorrow now; only happiness. Ehtehharzodee."
"Peace," says Sam, rubbing his eyes. All of the angels – and Lisa – in the room nod.
"It is a sacred thing." Jack says. He stands up and straightens out his pants, brushing off crumbs that I suspect weren't actually there. "I think my work here is done. I have reunited loved ones, and think I should take my leave."
"Nonsense," says Liam. "You'll stay with us. You saved Samael, and you didn't have to do that. You could have escaped by yourself. But you didn't."
Cael nods. "Please, stay with Leliel. His home can offer protection. And anything I can do for you, name it and I will try. I owe you for saving my twin's life."
Jack smiles, making him look grandfatherly. "We are all family, especially so for the repentant Fallen. If we do not stick together, I am afraid salvation would not be an option."
Mom clears her throat then, and everybody looks at her. "Sooo," she says, "who wants tea?"
A couple of days later, I'm walking to my locker from English class when a hand on my shoulder startles me into dropping all of my books, making the coke I was balancing precariously on top of them, forcing the sticky liquid to go everywhere.
"Sorry kid," says Vicky with a very not-sorry smirk on her lips, which she's decided to colour purple today to match her little jacket. "It just so happens that Douma and two of his idiot underlings are holed up in a warehouse a few hours from town. You, me, and Cara are going on a little reconnaissance mission to get your necklace back."
I feel my eyes widen. "What?"
"Tinkerbell is in the car," she says. "Get your shit in your locker and meet us in the parking lot. I don't particularly care if you get in trouble with the school for skipping class; we need to get that back."
She begins to walk away, and turns back and appraises me. "Nice outfit," she says. "We're purple shirt twins."
"I cannot believe we are actually doing this," says Cara for the fifth time as we wait for Vicky outside Liam's house. It turns out that she'd been babysitting Sam for Samael (who's told us to call refer to her as Samantha in public) and Liam.
A sigh escapes me. "I can." Cara shakes her head, her red locks bouncing at the movement. She seems so absolutely terrified that she's actually come all the way back around to fine; a total one hundred and eighty degrees.
The trunk slams shut, and five minutes later Vicky is sitting in the driver's seat of Cara's car, laughing as it skids on ice.
"We're going to die," says Cara, almost conversationally. "We well and truly are going to freaking die." Her voice is casual, but her eyes hold true fear.
After twenty or so minutes of driving and bickering over what radio station to choose, Vicky finally relays her plan to us. The forest passes by, tree after tree on either side of the car, and at once I am struck by the beauty of this part of Maine.
"Alright," says Vicky. "Listen up children, because I won't be repeating myself. There are three people we need to get through, and that's only if Douma is even around. I know he still has your necklace because a friend tipped me off."
Cara snorts. "You're so cryptic..."
Vicky pointedly ignores the remark. "He is trying to find a way to use its power, but it's attuned to you, Khiara, which is why we need it back. Samael can't just whip up another one; you only ever get one." She glances at me in the back seat from the rear-view mirror.
"I am going to cause a distraction near the entrance. I know there will be at least one person guarding the place. I'll signal you in some way to let you know it's safe to follow. From there we need to douse out the necklace's power. You should be able to feel it, Khiara, but if you can't, I'm a pretty good scout."
Cara shakes her head. "This isn't going to work. It's not well thought out at all. We're screwed."
Vicky shrugs like she couldn't care less. "We'll just have to see."
I cough into my hand, feeling suddenly run down, and am startled when Cara wordlessly hands me a tissue.
"Thanks," I say, coughing into it. A small spatter of blood stains the white of the tissue.
"You're bleeding," she says, her eyes cast down so as not to meet my own.
She shrugs, "I've been carrying first aid supplies in my purse for some time now. Just in case something happens...you're getting weaker. That's why I agreed to get the necklace, because it'll protect you better. I know you can fight pretty great now, but...well, I dunno. Best friends don't let best friends die."
I reach over and hold her hand, and just like that, we're silent for the entire two hour car trip.
~*~
Cara and I are huddled behind some dumpsters and recycling bins in an alley by the entrance to the abandoned warehouse where Douma and his minions are staying, but every once in a while we peek out from behind them to get a better look at Vicky. For the most part, she's just been talking to the guard, and I've kind of grown bored.
"Oh...my...God..." Cara whispers suddenly, tugging on my sleeve to get my attention. "We have to endure this just to get your stinking necklace back?"
I look up from my phone, on which I'm playing some boring "match the fruit" game, to see what she's talking about and have to stifle a disgusted gasp. "Is she really doing what I think she's doing?"
Vicky is doing the unthinkable. The guard has his pants to the ground and she's...
Cara makes a face and fakes a gagging motion, and then a very obscene gesture. "You mean sucking his –"
I cut her off quickly, "Obviously that's what I mean!" I look away, ashamed to have even witnessed that.
I turn to Cara, who's still staring, her eyes wide and her moth in a disgusted grimace. "Why are you still watching?" I whisper-shout.
Cara shakes her head and shrugs at the same time. "That's dirtier than that one time I almost did it behind the dumpster next to your house like last year, with Brady Johannesan," she whispers.
I'm not even going to ask about that. I silently thank God that she's with Tristan now. Thunder booms in the distance and I take that as a response, and smile a bit.
She's still staring. "You know when there's something so disgusting you can't help but watch? This is it."
I groan, "No, I don't. Can you please stop looking?"
"I feel like something is gonna happen – she said she'd give us a signal..."
I'm beginning to say, "I'm pretty sure we know what's going to happen," when Vicky pulls out a knife, gives a sharp snarl of what can only be described as insane laughter, stabs the guy right in the chest, and then looks right in our direction and waves us over.
"I guess killing him mid-B.J was the signal," I mutter.
"You guys coming or what?" She yells like a kid waiting for their parents so they can get on a roller coaster.
We quickly follow her into the warehouse which is dark, though a quick snap of her fingers and Cara's produced a nice red flame to help us see better, illuminating the old building. Who needs a flash light when you have a Fire Nymph? A good look around tells us that this used to be a clothing factory; the first floor is filled with sewing machines.
The deeper we walk into the place, the more it smells like...well I don't know a good way to put this, so I'll just say it: actual human excrement.
I feel absolutely nauseated as we climb the stairs at the back of the large room. We find that there are small rooms on the higher levels that branch out off of the landings between each floor – there are three floors and three small landings between. Vicky made sure to find that out before coming.
"Okay," whispers Vicky. "We're gonna do some Scooby Doo shit right now. Are you ready gang? There are three of us, and there are three floors, and I figure you can hold you own, as long as you keep your cool."
She reaches under her skirt and into her leggings, and produces a knife. "This'll do some damage. It was strapped to my thigh, in case ya'll are wondering, and it's charmed thanks to Samael."
She chuckles when Cara whispers, "Ew, it must be all sweaty."
"I had to find a way to keep it concealed." Explains Vicky, handing the weapon – which is still warm from her body heat – over to me. "Cara, you take the second floor and I'll take the top floor."
She appraises me. "I don't want to make you feel inferior or anything, but I think you should stick to the landings. Now only use that knife if you have to, okay, kid." She surprises me by leaning forward and kissing me on the top of my head.
"I could pass for somebody much younger than you," she says, her voice thick with some unnamed emotion. "But I'm old enough to be called ancient." She seems to be implying something, but I'm not sure I get it.
She turns to Cara and smirks half-heartedly. "I've haven't known you for very long, and I want you to know from the bottom of my heart, that I think you're not that annoying."
Cara smiles right back at her. "Yeah, I don't hate you either. You're like the annoying sister I've always wanted." Cara turns to me and says, "You're like my completely opposite fraternal twin."
"Alright gang," whispers Vicky. "Let's split up and search for clues. If you have to kick some asses, I have every faith in you that you can do it. Our primary search is for Douma, but if you find the other guy he's with, that'll work too, because he can lead us to him. The necklace is in here somewhere. I can feel it."
"How come I can't?" I ask.
She shrugs. "You need to be closer to it, I guess. You'll know when you are. Okay, enough dilly dallying. Let's get our asses in gear!"
I make my way to the first little room, which branches off of the second floor landing, while Cara goes in the direction opposite direction, where a door leads to the main room of the second floor. Vicky walks up the stairs, quiet as a mouse, on her way to the third floor. I can only hope to be as quiet.
I use my phone's flashlight app to help me see and shiver in the cold; this place isn't heated and I can see my breath. The room is windowless and dusty and holds nothing more than a pitiful desk with two broken legs on the left side and an equally broken chair. I shrug, not sensing anything and walk to the other side of the room, sure that I'll probably not find anything of importance.
It turns out, I'm half right. I don't find anything that seems significant, but I do find a pair of rusted handcuffs that if not for the still mostly wet pool of blood, could have fit right in with the old room. I decide not to touch anything, but I snap a picture for evidence. I realize that deeming it not completely important seems callous to whoever lost that blood, but I expected to find something like this, and it's not directly connected to our goal of getting my necklace as far as I know.
I make my way to the third floor landing taking care to be as quiet as I can, and pop my head into the room. Of course that's where the scent of human waste is coming from. The stench of vomit mixed with urine and feces permeates the small room, making me gag. Its layout is identical to the one below save the desk and chair, and the fact that a man who is covered in blood is lying in the right hand corner.
"Oh God," I whisper, my already nauseated stomach turning at the sight. "Please don't tell me he's dead."
I inch my way into the room, slowly but surely walking around puddles of the revolting stuff. When I reach the man, I bend down to take his pulse but stop with my fingers inches away from his throat. Should I really risk getting my finger prints on him?
I decide to risk it, and touch his neck.
No pulse.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to his not-yet-pale body. "I wish I'd have been able to help you." I momentarily wonder if he was human.
"He was one of the repentant." Vicky's says from behind me.
"Did you read my mind?" I ask, unable to tear my gaze away from the man. His glassy brown eyes that gaze into nothing and his skin colour hint at him having Fallen somewhere in East Asia, perhaps, though his appearance is very little to go by; there is so much diversity, that I really couldn't tell you for sure, and I'm not sure why it matters so much to me to know.
"No," says Vicky. "I didn't have to."
"Did you know him?" I ask, finally looking away from him.
Vicky nods her head. "Yeah. He was the guy who tipped me off. I guess Douma caught up with him somehow. We won't find him in here. I found fuck all on the third floor besides more rusted machinery."
Suddenly a scream erupts from the level below us. Vicky's eyes meet mine.
Cara.
"I will end you!" she screams and the sound of flesh hitting bone echoes throughout the warehouse as Vicky and I make our way to the second floor, not caring about being silent anymore.
When we get there, Cara is clutching her right arm to her chest, and it is dripping blood and her wrist seems to be sticking out at an odd angle. A boy of about fifteen is holding his hand to his broken and bloody nose, stunned.
"What's the matter," she taunts, steam pouring off of her in waves from the heat of her body. "You thought a broken arm would stop me from hurting you? I will fucking kill you before I let you go near my friends."
"You're feistier than I bargained for," he says, letting go of his nose, which has now healed. "But I can heal. You can't."
Just as he moves to grab Cara, I do something equal parts stupid and amazing. With almost disturbing precision, I pull out my knife, pull my arm back and then whip the knife right into the guy's back. This gives Vicky enough time to get to him so that she can pin him down and for me to get to Cara so that I can make sure she doesn't pass out from the blood loss.
As Vicky is busy with Douma's minion, I take off my jacket and quickly shed my sweater, then with my knife begin to cut it into strips so that I can wrap it and make a sling. Cara taught me to do this, in case of emergency.
"I'll be okay, you know," says Cara. "I have magic to help speed my healing process. Plus my mom won't ask questions; that'd mean she'd actually have to care about me and we can't have her doing that now can we?"
I frown. "She cares about you Cara, she's just..."
Cara shakes her head, looks down, then smiles to herself miserably. "She cares about me like I'm an ugly dog she got stuck with because of a divorce. I came to that conclusion at Dad's funeral, when she didn't cry and yelled at me for not wanting to leave the cemetery. Remember he had two different coffins because the first was ruined?"
I nod and begin to wrap Cara's arm, working slowly so that I make no mistakes. In the background, the sound of Vicky repeatedly punching and kicking the man makes the hair on my neck stand on end.
"I burned the first one with him in it. He became one with Father Fire. There was no body in the second casket." She sighs, and then looks at me, tears running down her face. "My mother knew this whole time, about the Fae, or at least she knew there was something different about Dad and me."
She cringes as I accidentally jostle her wrist as I put in into my makeshift sling, having finished wrapping it. "She told me last week that she knows what kind of monster I am. My mother does not love me, Khiara, and she didn't even love my dad. My father loved her with every fibre of his being, and maybe she did love him once, and maybe she loved me at one point too...but that's long gone. She's just stuck with me until I'm old enough to leave the house."
"Boo hoo," unexpectedly booms a voice from the darkness. "Aren't you just a pathetic bunch? I mean one of you is dying, one of you has a mother who hates you and one of you...well, the past is the past I suppose, but it seems you're holding onto your anger from that one time I killed your family. It's stupid really, when I think about it."
Douma walks out of the shadows and in the time it takes Vicky to let up punching the other angel, and for her to realize her mistake, Douma has her by her throat and picks up her body as if it weighs nothing.
"Stupid whore," he spits. "I don't know what I ever saw in you."
He turns to myself and Cara and shouts, "Do you know the lengths I took to make this bitch love me?"
"No, but you're going to tell us," mutters Cara, sarcasm dripping from her words.
He scoffs. "But then she turns around and tells me that she's in love with a stupid human. And so yeah, in a moment of anger I told Father and she Fell because of that and yeah, I felt guilty about it."
Douma shrugs, almost nonchalantly. "Eventually I Fell too, for my own reasons, and by then she'd shacked up with the guy and they had two annoying children. Cute as a button because they looked like their mother but annoying beyond compare!"
He smiles. "So I killed them first."
"You bastard!" Vicky's voice has a hysterical edge to it, not from being choked. I get the sense that she never knew exactly how it had happened.
My suspicions are confirmed when Douma laughs and then spits right in her face then says, "I stabbed Aahmes first, and then Hasina second. They both called out for you, you know."
"Stop," wheezes Vicky, "please."
Douma ignores her. "'Ama!' they kept screeching like it'd make a difference. They were too human-blooded and their lives faded fast, but Hasina held on longer than her brother. When Aamesseker found them, he was an easy kill – his grief consumed him, and while he was bent over Hasina, who was still breathing, I slit his throat."
Vicky is thrashing now, desperately trying to get out of his hold. By now, the other angel has healed from her attacks and my knife, and he lies in waiting for Douma's next order.
"That's how you found them, right?" says Douma, as he throws Vicky down on to the floor, hard.
The revolting sound of her skull hitting the concrete floor reverberates throughout the warehouse. Douma signals the other angel to hold her down, and he complies. In that moment, I realize something. Douma isn't watching me, and he isn't watching Cara; and my necklace is dangling from the back pocket of his minion's blue jeans. Its power suddenly hits me like a punch in the gut, and I wonder why I didn't recognize it sooner.
Before I can totally think my plan through, I make the universal sign of shh to Cara (who frowns with all the energy she can muster, and then makes the universal slit throat sign for I will kill you) and tiptoe towards the angel as quietly as I can. I can feel Cara's eyes on my back, burning my skin.
The angel's back pocket is facing me and I am so, so, so close and – yes.
I'm able to grab it!
I hastily stuff the necklace in my bra, but as I make it halfway back to Cara I trip and fall onto the hard floor. I can't stop the yelp that escapes me as my chin gets scraped, and just like that, everybody's attention is on me.
"Jonah, kill everybody except her," says Douma, pointing to me. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I must be going. Deliver Khiara to me when you're done here. I have a body upstairs to clean up and dispose of."
He walks over to me and painfully grabs me by the wrist, then drags me over to Cara, who appears to be growing weak from the blood loss.
He grins, showing his teeth. "Say your goodbyes now. Looks like Cara won't make it, I'm afraid. Sad since it's just a broken bone. Poor little Faen-Halfling. You'll return to the Fire. I promise it'll be over soon."
"Yeah, yeah," whispers Cara. "Don't you have a body to get rid of?"
Douma pats her on the head like a puppy. "Quite right," he says, and walks towards the stairs, but then turns back around to look at me.
"I'm going to destroy your necklace," he announces.
"I've got it right here in my pocket." He pats his pocket proudly. "And you're going to help me destroy it."
The necklace is practically singeing my skin with the heat that it's radiating, and it takes everything I have not to smile like an idiot.
"No, I won't. I will never help you."
He turns away again, and over his shoulder he says, "You will, Ms. Banning. You'll see."
"No," I mutter under my breath as he disappears into the stairwell. "You'll see."
I turn away from the empty space he just occupied, to see Jonah still pinning Vicky down with only his foot. Her eyes meet mine, and I nod once, and smile slightly.
Her eyes light up, and so subtly it could be missed she nods her head as well.
"First, I'm going to rip your friend here apart. And then I'll get to you two." Says Jonah.
"Go fuck yourself," snarls Vicky, with every ounce of venom she has. Jonah lifts his foot, and reaches down, and pulls Vicky to her feet, and then punches her in the stomach, making her curl into herself.
"Do it again, a little harder, I didn't quite feel it." She rasps.
He punches her in the jaw, and a revolting cracking noise comes from her teeth being broken, and she falls to the floor again. She spits out some blood and a couple of teeth and smiles, "I can do thith all day. They'll jutht grow back. In fact...they're already healing as we thspeak."
This really angers him and he begins wailing on her, turning his complete attention on her. That's when I understand what she's doing; creating a diversion.
"Cara," I whisper, "I need you to-" but she's already pulled out what appears to be a knife from her pocket and she looks like she feels much better than she just did moments ago.
"I've got this covered," she whispers back.
She runs right towards him before I can stop her.
Thrusting the weapon into Jonah's neck Cara yells, "The pen is mightier than the sword, bitch!"
"What the fuck?" Says Jonah, before letting go of Vicky and falling to the ground with a scream, and I see that the weapon isn't a knife at all – it really is a pen, though it's red hot from Cara's Fire Magick, which is spreading all over his body, lighting up his veins, making him writhe in pain, unable to do anything else.
"I don't think that's what the librarian meant, Cara..." I say as we help Vicky to her feet while she mutters something along the lines of, "Yeah, but at least she stunned him."
"I have issues, what can I say?" says Cara as she laughs nervously and sniffs the air which smells like burning flesh.
When we reach the dumpsters where she stabbed the guard, who's still lying there, not healed, Cara asks, "Jonah's not dead is he? I didn't kill him?"
"You can't kill us. You can beat the shit out of us, but kill us? Naw, we only die when it's another angel at the hilt of a sword, and it has to be a fatal blow or else we'll heal." Vicky says. "The guard will heal, but he's Nephilim so it'll take him longer."
"Ah, yes," I mumble. "Let's get the hell out of here."
But Vicky doesn't move. "No!" she growls. "You guys go without me. I need to get to Douma. I need to make him pay."
"You're not thinking straight," says Cara. "We need to get to the car and get the fuck out of here."
"No!" Shouts Vicky. She's visibly shaking, and there's blood covering her jaw, matted in her hair, and along her arms.
Not right now," says a small voice from behind us. I turn and realize that it's... Sam?
Has he been hiding all this time?
"If you want to make him pay, do it during the Battle. But right now we gotsta go."
"What the fuck are you doing here?" says Cara as Vicky says, "What do you know about my pain, boy?"
Sam walks up to us and stands before me, lifting his chubby arms up over his head, "Got in from the trunk. I'm tired."
I pick him up out of instinct, and he wraps his arms around me, and then cradles his head in the crook of my neck, his curly blonde locks soft against my skin. He shivers a bit, and I realize how cold it's become.
"I know a lot, Aunty V" he says. "It's not my fault."
The hard lines of Vicky's face soften up a bit as Sam turns his big green eyed gaze directly towards her. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice quivering. "It's not my fault. I just wanted to come in case you guys's needed me."
"I know it's not, kid." She says to him. "Let's get you home. You shouldn't have followed us. It must have taken some strong magic to get into the trunk. You shouldn't be doing stuff like that." Vicky turns to walk away, but then stops walking.
"Tinkerbell," she says tiredly; she's still not fully healed.
"You're talking to me, I assume," Cara shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Sam shivers some more in my arms. I suppress a sudden cough working its way into my throat.
"Take the kid. He's cold and you're warm. Plus Khiara's been pretty sick recently herself and we kind of need her to not, you know, die."
Normally Cara would have muttered something under her breath about not being a portable heater; I can tell she even thought about saying something. But instead, she wordlessly reaches out for Sam with her good arm.
"Come here, little guy," she says as I hand the sleepy boy over. She makes her way over to the car, cooing sweet nothings to Sam as they walk.
"We have to get to the car. Douma will know what happened in a minute; he's probably already on his way to find us." I say to Vicky.
She looks as if she wants to throttle me, but she sighs and jogs towards the car. I've won this round.
And of course, my necklace.
End of chapter