Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (40 page)

“You always pick the same thing.” A girl with long blond hair and fake red nails thumped one of the plastic cases for emphasis.

“And you don’t? Would you like me to recite the last dozen or so nearly identical romantic comedies you’ve made me sit through, Holly?”

“Well, at least I don’t have a bizarre fixation with the end of the world,” Holly shot back, unfazed. Eliot froze in the middle of the new release section, listening hard. ”Apocalypse after apocalypse, that’s all you want to see. Zombies, plagues, asteroids, natural disasters; I don’t get it.”

Chloe whipped her head up, her brown eyes narrowed to slits even as her mouth twitched into a bitter smile. ”I guess I just like to watch the world burn
.
” She dropped her dark eyes quickly, busily flipping through cases, but not before he saw pain flare across her face
.

He knew in that moment some part of her did remember her childhood, her own private apocalypse. Despite the masterful erasures and lies, some deep part of her remembered. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to feel pity as he visualized her father’s murderers, knowing the nightmares hunted her again in a very real way.

Picking at cds as if they were vegetables she didn’t want to eat, her blond friend sighed. ”Don’t be sad, Chlo. There’s a party, and Griffin really likes you. Derek said so.”

Chloe didn’t seem to hear. She held a single cd case with tight white fingers as if it was an alien object she had never seen before. “How did this become my life? It’s like I slipped backstage while the rest of the world moved on, and I don’t know how to find my way back.” Holly linked an arm through Chloe’s. Light hair and dark blended together as voices dropped to a murmur. Her friend’s red lacquered nails moved in slow soothing circles across his Ward’s bowed back.

He kept himself two customers behind her and her friends as they paid. The two boys lagged behind, huddling together to whisper to each other. Their body language triggered an inner alarm. Males their age usually kept a few feet of social space between them. Eliot closed his eyes, straining to catch their words.

“Of course it’s enough,” Holly’s date whispered.

“For both of them?” the tall blond asked doubtfully.

“Promise. Meet me in the kitchen, at the party, ok?”

A chunk of ice bloomed in his stomach as he strained to catch an address, directions, anything. His training came to him in a rush, his fingers literally aching to draw his blade and send it spinning through the fluid deadly movements he knew better than his own mother’s face. Despite his uncle’s warnings, the force of his rage was shocking.
Breathe,
he managed to think. He couldn’t kill these boys in a crowded store. He realized he was about to snap the record in half and pried his fingers loose before he ruined it. He had at least two threats to protect her from now. He passed a hand lightly down the side of his jacket, checking his weapons, his breathing deep and deliberate.

As her friends finished paying, Chloe stood by the front window, her reflection cast back at him like a blurry photograph. Her long hair fell across her face as she looked at the cover art of one of her purchases. He felt the full force of her presence hit him then. Cass had told him to expect this; his uncle had explained about the bond between Guardian and Ward, about the protective instincts that sometimes overwhelmed reason. But he couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed. He had to trail the group and get her away as soon as possible. To do that, he had to stay focused; her safety was essential, to an entire world she didn’t know about yet.

That was when he saw
them
.

They melted out from the aisles of music. Her friends were grouped around her, laughing and showing off their purchases, blocking her from view. He was torn between wanting to thank them and wanting to kill them. In front of him, the creatures he had to protect her from at all cost inched toward him. The acrid smell of metallic fire clung to the human bodies they wore in this world. One of them grinned at him, a gruesome rictus of a smile. These creatures were here to kill her
now
. He stepped out from the line, directly in their path, knowing they would see him, would focus on him as she walked out the door. Every instinct within him screamed at him to follow her, to not let her out of his sight.

Damn,
he swore.
Some Guardian I’m turning out to be.
He dropped his music on the floor and ran for the alternate exit.

“I’m not sure I’m up for this,” Chloe said, eyeing the cave-like stairwell with a sinking feeling. She was tired and annoyed. Griffin had become aggressive and rude; his eyes lingered in places that made her feel slimy inside. Holly and her date huddled together in an alley that divided the low-rent apartment buildings behind Little Five. Chloe fought down unease. She didn’t have much time before curfew.
And I usually don’t care about curfew. This is officially the date from hell.
“Whose apartment is this, again?” she heard herself ask, but her thoughts were far away.

“You remember Gavin and Tate? They graduated last year? It’s been party central since they moved here. You’ll love it.” She didn’t remember a Gavin or a Tate, but Griffin didn’t seem to care. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. ”Come on, it’ll be fun.” Music pulsed out the open windows and down the narrow hallway, doing nothing to cover the laughing and yelling partygoers. Someone screamed about being next in line for a keg stand.

“I don’t know, Griffin. My mom wanted me home by midnight,” Chloe lied.

He rolled his eyes at her. ”Your
mom
? The one who hates my guts? The one you never listen to?
That
mom?”

She shifted uneasily in her favorite boots. The heavy square heels made her feel taller and powerful, and she was pretty sure she could break a few toes if she stomped with all her weight. The night had turned cool, surprising for Atlanta in early fall. She was glad for the corduroy jacket she’d thought to bring as she slipped it over the spaghetti straps of her sundress. Griffin kept his eyes below her neck as she shrugged into her jacket.
Ugh. Disgusting. Time to end this,
she thought grimly.

“Look, Griffin, I had a really good time and all…” she began, but a heavy push from behind almost sent her sprawling. ”Hey, watch it!” she yelled, whirling around. Holly laughed in her face, but the perspective was wrong. Derek carried her over his shoulder so that she looked at Chloe upside down.

“Help!” Holly laughed, making a grab for Chloe, but the stocky boy holding her pulled her just out of reach. ”I’m being kidnapped! And forced to party! Save me, Chloe! Save me!”

Chloe frowned at her friend. ”Have you been drinking?” she half asked, half accused.

“No!” Holly protested. “Well, not much.” Her best friend laughed as she disappeared into the dim hallway and out of Chloe’s sight, slung over Derek’s shoulder like somebody’s dry cleaning.

Griffin leaned against the wall, arms crossed and smirking. Chloe decided she
really
didn’t like the way he was looking at her, and she
really
didn’t like him either. She glanced around, taking deep breaths, wishing the cloud-obscured sliver of a moon cast more light so she had a better idea of where she was. Holly couldn’t possibly have had more than a beer or two.
Did she take something? But that’s not like her, either.

“CHLOE!” Holly screamed from upstairs. She appeared briefly in the window. ”Chloe! Tamara’s here, back from Austin, you’ve got to…” But Derek appeared behind her, dragging her back with an arm around her waist while she giggled maniacally.

Her uneasiness crystallized into alarm as a bitter, metallic scent tickled her nose. ”Do you smell that? Like metal, or something?” she asked, stepping towards the alley, the source of the smell. It reminded her of something, something unpleasant… She stepped hastily back.

“I smell lilies,” whispered a voice at her ear. Chloe jumped. “I smell you.” Griffin’s lips rested directly against her ear. He tried to nuzzle her neck through her hair, and his arms locked around her waist, pulling her back against him.

“
Stop
,” she growled, shoving away from him. Anger bloomed, bright and hot. She suddenly wondered what the hell she was doing standing in an alley with a guy like him.
No parental rebellion is worth this
. She thought she saw a brief flare of anger as he stepped back.

“Ok, ok,” he said, hands out in a conciliatory gesture.

“I just want to go home,” she demanded. “Right. Now.”

“Ok, sorry. Really. We’ll go home. No problem. But Holly’s got the car keys,” he said, shrugging.

She stared at him for a long moment. “Oh,
hell
,” she swore, and followed him up the dark stairwell with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, disoriented by the disturbingly familiar smell from the alley.

Eliot shot through the back door he’d mapped earlier at a dead run. He fought down a short, bitter laugh. He never dreamed being chased by the Abandoned down a dark alley would have one day been his idea of success, but it was. He did not have to look to know they were following him, and not Chloe. He could smell them.

In the dim light of the almost moonless night, the alley turned sharply left, opening onto the brightly lit, people-clogged streets of Little Five. He skidded to a stop, the brick wall of the alley at his back, Moreland Avenue to his side, as three dark clad figures advanced slowly toward him.

“Whatever it is you’re after, we both know none of us wants to carry this out there,” Eliot said, with a nod at the busy street.

“You know what we want,” one of them hissed. Its voice reminded Eliot of a snake, low and rattling. “We all want the same thing.”

“I doubt that very much,” Eliot said softly, his fingers inching towards the inside of his jacket.

“Give us the girl,” one of the others whispered hoarsely. “Give her to us, and we will let you go.”

“You know that’s not a possibility,” Eliot said with a confidence he did not feel. His hand rested just outside his jacket now, only inches from what he needed. “I don’t even have her, myself.”

The one closest to him held out his hands; they flickered with a low, dancing flame. “But you know where she is,” it said, the flame glowing a little more brightly.

He saw its snarl before he felt the fire. The Abandoned, a creature of darkness and flame, a being that had consumed the world of his birth and stood before him now wearing the body of a person from the world he had adopted, threw a wave of flames at him. Eliot was ready. He hurled a handful of earth at the approaching fire even as he threw another handful down in an arc in front of him. The fire burned out in the air as surely as if it had been doused with water.

“Earth,” one of them hissed, stepping backward.

“From the Guarded Lands,” the other agreed.

So it’s true,
he thought wonderingly, grateful it hadn’t yet come to blades and blood. Cass had assured him repeatedly that the land they lived on, a barrier between worlds, was the last secure place into which the Abandoned could not cross. He knew better than anyone what it had cost to make Gray’s Landing safe, a place where the Abandoned could not go, but he had never seen the soil of his home stop the Abandoned cold. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure until he’d seen it with his own eyes.

And then he began to run. He had to find her again, before
they
did, before something unimaginable happened to her. He ran for his motorcycle, grateful he’d chosen such a light and maneuverable machine
. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to her fast. If I’m lucky, all I’ll have to deal with is two creepy human boys.
He spared a second glance back at the alley, his throat still singed from such close contact with the Abandoned.
If I’m not lucky, it will be blades and blood after all.
Eliot ran faster.