Darkest Knight (3 page)

I pulled out each item, one by one, starting with the pocket watch. I slowly withdrew the halt charm made of oak bark. “There’s an interesting story behind this one.” I held it out to him and he nodded as if he recognized it. I smiled. “It was actually Shojin who found it.”

Aydin’s cat whiskers twitched.

I nodded. “Yep. I saw him today. He gave me something to give you.” My heart hammered so hard against my ribs I thought they’d break. I tossed the empty rabbit stick in the fire. “Shojin loved you very much.”

Aydin straightened and backed away from me. Though fur covered his face, I could still see his scowl. I think he guessed what I was about to give him. He shook his head.

“He made the ultimate sacrifice, Aydin.” I lifted the beautiful glowing heart from the pouch and held it up. “Shojin died so that you could become a man again.”

Aydin’s chest rose and fell like he had trouble breathing. He pointed at me.

“No!” I gave my head a quick shake. “It wasn’t me, I swear. He harvested the heart with his own claws because he loved you that much.” And so did I.

Still frowning, Aydin gently took the heart from me. My shoulders slouched in relief. Once he ate the heart, I’d have him back the way he used to be. We’d be together again, both free of our curses, both ready to start new lives. My eyes felt hot and I realized they’d filled with tears. Tears of hope.

Aydin’s paws rubbed over the heart as if cherishing a precious gem, which it was. Rare and beautiful. Then he threw back his head and roared. His anguished cry tore through me and I stood to hold my arms open to him. To comfort him. But he tossed the heart at my feet.

I crouched down to snatch it, unbroken, from the frigid ground. “What are you doing?” I yelled.

His lips peeled back from fangs sharp enough to pierce glass without making it crack. He fisted his claws and spread his wings before abruptly vanishing from sight.

three

“AYDIN!” I RAN OUT OF THE BARN AND GAZED
up at the dense clouds that had dumped buckets of snow. I didn’t see him, but I sensed him up there. Invisible, and he was flying far away from me.

I clutched the gargoyle heart to my chest and whispered, “Shojin, you didn’t die for nothing. We’ll get him back. I promise.”

“I see he didn’t lose his ability to vanish like a thief in the night.”

I spun around to see Rafe standing behind me.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, blinking hard as I tried to figure out what was wrong with this picture. He looked so…different.

“Long enough to hear him roar and see him vanish,” Rafe said, sounding annoyed. “As I suspected he would.”

I squinted at him. “Rafe, what have you done to yourself?”

He placed both hands on his chest. “Me? Oh, you mean the clothes.”

I nodded and stared, openmouthed. “The clothes, the hair, the skin, and the fact you cut about a foot off your height.”

He turned his back to me and I gasped.

“Oh, my God! What happened to your wings?”

“Relax.” He faced me again. “This is a disguise. We can take human form whenever we wish. It’s often necessary when we interact with mortals.”

His hair was no longer white but a wheat-blond that looked as natural as the stubble on his tan cheeks and chin. What a change. His skin was normally porcelain-smooth, and he was usually taller than a pro basketball player. I had to give him credit for his choice of clothes. Acid-washed denim from top to bottom, but his jacket looked thickly lined with fleece, his gloves leather and his muffler cable-knit. Even his boots were stylin’. He looked like he’d walked straight out of
GQ Magazine.

“Wow,” was all I could say.

He scowled, looking uncomfortable, and glanced down at himself. “Did I miss something?”

I shook my head. “Not a thing.”

He smiled. “Good.” Squinting up at the sky, he said, “Now that it’s gone, we can leave.”

Though Aydin’s rejection of the heart was a setback, I wasn’t angry, just disappointed. He needed time to grieve for his old friend and I could be patient. After everything Aydin had done for me he deserved at least that much.

“Rafe, Aydin is a he, not an it. And by the way, I still have the gargoyle heart so we can’t travel through the veil. I already tried and it wouldn’t open for me.”

“Of course not. I made an attempt to warn you about that, but you cut me off, remember?” Lips pressed firmly together, he added, “This is why I acquired a motor vehicle for our transportation.”

Like any good Boy Scout, Rafe had come prepared. This kept getting better and better. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

He scowled again. “Why would I kid you? Don’t you think I can drive?”

“Um. No?”

Shaking his head, he stalked past me and rounded the corner of the barn. I followed. Parked out back in a foot of snow was a shiny black Cadillac Escalade.

Pointing at the tires, I said, “You put the chains on yourself?”

He sighed. “Just get in. Thanks to the trophy you just acquired, we have a long drive ahead.”

Ah, yes. I was finally going to meet my sister knights and my grandmother for the first time. A Hatchet knight herself, she lived with my grandfather—an angel who chose to become mortal—in the very state I’d fled from a month ago. Colorado, here we come.

“Are we there yet?” I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn’t care. We’d traveled over two thousand miles and as nice as this SUV was, I wanted out.

Rafe glanced at his watch. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me in the last fifteen minutes. My answer is still the same. Two hours to go.”

“Correction. That should be one hour and forty-five minutes.”

“Traveling with me hasn’t been that bad, has it?”

I slumped down in the seat and uncrossed, then recrossed, my ankles on the dashboard. “I’m bored and I’m tired and my back hurts.” I wished we’d park in one spot long enough for Aydin to find me. I glanced out the window and peered up at the overcast sky. He had to be up there somewhere.

Rafe followed the direction of my gaze. “Still on the lookout for your winged devil, eh?”

“Don’t call him that.” I understood angels and gargoyles didn’t get along, but for crap sake, this was Aydin. One of the good guys. “He’s on our side, remember?”

Rafe grunted.

I stared at his resolute profile. He looked mortal, but he didn’t behave like one. He’d hardly eaten anything in over thirty hours and he never slept. Not once. The only time we stopped was to gas up and for me to eat and use the bathroom. I wanted a shower in the worst way.

Feeling grungy, I gave myself a sniff. “Do I stink?”

He scowled. “No, you don’t stink.” He shook his head. “You smell fine. You smell like…you.”

I didn’t know if that was good or bad. He had no odor whatsoever and if anyone would know it would be me. “How do you stay so clean without taking a bath?”

“I’m an angel.”

“Duh. I know that.” I rolled my eyes. “But you’re mortal at the moment. You’ve got mortal parts, right?” I looked pointedly down at his crotch.

He dropped a hand from the steering wheel to his lap as if to hide his manly bits. “Of course I do.”

Leaning toward him, I looked closely at his face. “I don’t believe it. You’re blushing.”

“Look, there’s a truck stop. Hungry? Need to use the facilities?”

“Sure,” I said, settling back in my seat again. “I could eat and take a pee. Don’t you have to pee?”

“No.”

I jutted my chin toward the hand that covered his package. “Then what good is that?”

“It’s plenty good, I assure you.” He turned the wheel a bit too sharply and I slid across the seat. I nearly landed on top of him.

I moved over to hug the door on my side.

“Sorry about that,” Rafe said, and a shadow of a grin touched his lips. He wasn’t sorry at all. He’d done that on purpose. “Don’t pout. It’s unbecoming for a knight.”

“I’m not pouting.” Crossing my arms firmly against my chest, I sat up straight and looked longingly at the coffee shop ahead. Hungrier than I thought, I wondered if it was morning or afternoon. I’d completely lost track of time. “Waffles. No, make that French toast. Two eggs over easy and order me extra bacon.” He parked the Escalade and I hopped out to make a beeline for the restrooms. “Thanks, Rafe. You’re an angel.”

I gave myself a whore’s bath in the restroom sink, using generous amounts of hand soap in the process. The hand dryer was an awkward way to dry off, but I was used to it. I’d done this countless times on the road during my thieving days so I was no stranger to prancing around a public bathroom in the buff. Luckily no one came in while I indulged in my trucker’s toilette.

Moderately refreshed, I got dressed and strode inside the restaurant to find Rafe. He sat in a booth looking worse than dejected. He looked lost.

“Hey,” I said softly, sensing something was wrong. I slid onto the bench seat across from him. “You okay?”

He blinked at me. “I just received a message.”

I cocked my head. “Yeah? Who from?”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple making a deep bob in his human throat. “The Arelim. It’s bad news.”

My heart sank into my stomach. Rafe had a telepathic link with his angelic brothers, who were never chatty without good reason. An angel with bad news always meant trouble. I waited for him to tell me what it was.

“Your sister knights,” he said slowly, his human eyes shining brighter than they should. He closed them and his hands curled into fists on the table. “Almost all of them are dead.”

four

“WHAT?
No!”
I STOOD UP AND NEARLY TOPPLED
the table. I’d waited so long, struggled so hard to finally join my sisters in the knighthood. My mission was to train them in self-protection. I refused to believe it was too late. “It must be a mistake.”

Rafe gazed down at his fists and shook his head. “No mistake,” he whispered. “It happened a few hours ago. I was just told that those who didn’t perish were either out of the country, in a warded area, or on sacred ground. That’s the only common link the Arelim have found.”

I blinked over dry eyes that stung from the effort to control my sensitive vision. This news was too distracting. Lights became too bright, I saw people’s auras spike with the colors of their emotions, and smells from the kitchen roiled what little I had in my stomach. I no longer had an appetite.

“How?” I asked.

“Suffocation.” Rafe leaned back in the booth seat, his handsome face looking haggard, as if defeated. Angel or not, the dark circles under his eyes were proof he needed sleep. “How they suffocated is unclear, but it happened as they slept.”

It was mildly comforting to know they hadn’t suffered. I grieved for Shojin and now I added my sisters to what seemed to be a growing list. I hoped this wasn’t a sign of more to come. “What killed them?”

“Unknown, but the cause appears unnatural,” he said. “And by that I mean supernatural.”

That didn’t surprise me considering each knight had a supernatural ability of her own. “Magic?”

Narrowing his eyes, Rafe said, “Not exactly. The Arelim detected no spells, charms or curses.”

“Yet they weren’t strangled or smothered?”

He shook his head. “It’s as if their breath was snatched right out of their lungs.”

Now I was really puzzled. “What could do that? A demon?”

“Possibly.” He gave me a long look. “Or another knight.”

Wow. “Don’t tell me my sisters are prone to killing each other.”

“It’s been known to happen in the past, but that was hundreds of years ago. The motive had always been jealousy, usually of another knight’s abilities, or if her guardian angel chose to become human after mating. It’s very rare within the order to have an angel for a husband.”

Yet my grandmother had wedded her guardian after my mother was conceived. Had her sisters been jealous? Was her life ever threatened? There was so much I still didn’t know. “Are the surviving knights under suspicion?”

“No one is above suspicion, Chalice. Not even you.”

“Me?” That surprised me. “Impossible. I’ve been with you this whole time.”

“Perhaps it was someone you know.” His eyes became hard. “Someone who can enter a body and make it do whatever he wants.”

He was talking about Aydin. Even though he had that ability, Aydin would never use it to harm a living soul. Just because gargoyles were assassins for the Vyantara didn’t automatically make him one. “I know who you’re talking about and he’s not like that.” I felt my ire heating up. “What reason could he possibly have to hurt my sisters?”

Rafe shrugged. “He’s a beast of darkness now. Who knows what he would do, or why.”

I glared at him. “You’re wrong. Aydin took a vow to Saint Geraldine that he would protect the Hatchets. He’d never go back on his word.” Saint Geraldine was one of the very first knights in the order, but she was a mummy now. Or at least her head was a mummy. Suffice to say she still lived despite existing over nine hundred years without the rest of her body.

Rafe blew a blast of air out his nose. “How can you be so sure? You hardly even know each other.”

“I know him better than I know you.”

He looked stunned for a second, but quickly recovered. His eyes hooded as if he were bored. Though we hadn’t ordered anything, Rafe threw a couple of bills on the table and stood. “Let’s not keep your grandmother waiting longer than she already has. She needs you. And you need her.”

What I really needed was to be away from Rafe for a while. He’d been wearing on my nerves ever since we left Quebec and after seeing his hostile attitude toward Aydin, I’d rather be alone. Rafe’s ego was big enough to fill a small planet.

We finished our drive to Golden, Colorado, in awkward silence. I was angry and Rafe was…who knew what. Angels were hard to read. He appeared deep in thought, but he also seemed to be sulking.

The long, snow-packed driveway leading to my grandmother’s home had tall pines on either side that sparkled with frost. It looked like a fairy winter wonderland.

Rafe stopped the car. “We’re here.”

My gaze wandered over the majestic ponderosas and skeletal aspens that had lost all their leaves. No house in sight. “We are? I don’t see anything but trees and a few big rocks.”

He opened the car door and stepped out, his boots squeaking on the snowy ground. “That’s because it’s protected by a privacy ward.” His hand waved through empty space and like a mirage, the air rippled and gradually formed the image of a house.

No ordinary house, its size made it more like a mansion. Yet it still looked like a classic mountain home of exposed cedar logs and natural stones set into the walls. Awesome.

“Wow,” was all I could say.

“After you,” Rafe said, making a slight bow.

I stepped gingerly over the invisible barrier between the seen and unseen. A massive door on the front porch opened and out walked a woman who could have been my mother’s twin. On closer inspection I saw she was much older, with gray streaks running through her wavy ebony hair, and her frame was more generous than my mother’s had been. My grandmother had meat on her bones.

“Rafael!” she called to angel-man beside me. “And oh, dear lord! Is this our Chalice?”

I felt my cheeks grow hot.

“Yes, Aurora. It sure is,” Rafe said, a genuine smile in his voice. He liked her, I could tell.

“She’s the mirror image of Felicia, rest her soul.” My grandmother pranced down the steps, her breath steaming in the icy air. She hugged a thick wool cardigan closed against her chest and the knitted muffler at her neck trailed behind her. As she came nearer I got a good look at her eyes. Turquoise and gold. Just like mine.

Smiling, she stopped about a foot from me and opened her arms. I knew she expected a hug, but I wasn’t a hugger. I made only one exception, but getting to hug Aydin wouldn’t happen for a while. For my grandmother I compromised, leaning forward to touch my cheek to hers. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon.

Eyes twinkling, she seemed satisfied with that. “Chalice, I’m so happy you’ve come.”

I was about to say how glad I was to be here when an enormous figure appeared at my grandmother’s back.

“So this is the granddaughter I’ve heard so much about.” The man stood slightly taller than Rafe in his human form, and his hair was black as Aurora’s. He looked mature, but it was hard to tell his age since there wasn’t a speck of gray in his hair. Signs of years gone by and exposure to the elements creased his handsome face. This must be my grandfather.

“Zeke, say hello to Chalice,” my grandmother said.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said to me, a grin tweaking the corners of his mouth. It made me feel like a little girl again. As happy as I was to finally meet my grandmother, my heart swelled at seeing my grandfather. I knew the sacrifice he’d made. He’d been an angel before deciding to become human just so he could marry the woman he loved and be a father to his child. His courage and commitment took my breath away.

“Honey, are you all right?” My grandmother placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

I blinked and sniffed, then rubbed my nose. “I’m fine. Just cold. Can I get a tissue, please?”

Eyes wide, she said, “Of course! Grab that angel of yours and let’s get you two inside to warm up.”

Rafe drew to my side and I jumped ahead before he could touch me. I wanted nothing to do with him right now.

“Welcome to Halo Home,” Zeke said.

I stood at the entrance and stared, wide-eyed, at the vast interior of the first floor. The foyer opened out into the living room, which opened to the dining room, which opened to the kitchen. One great room with a giant round fireplace in its center. This house was way too large for only two people.

Aurora nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. Yes, it’s too big for Zeke and me, which is why we have other Hatchet knights live here with us. This house has become something of a sanctuary over the years, mostly for new knights in training.”

I nodded, though I was puzzled by something Aydin once told me. “I thought it was too dangerous for the knights to live together. Made them vulnerable.”

Rafe studied my face. “Turns out it was more dangerous for them not to.”

My grandmother lifted both eyebrows in agreement. “It’s true that keeping the knights together can make them a target for black veil crackpots.” She shook her head. “Young knights come to us as orphans from time to time and we care for them until they’re ready to go out on their own. It’s a sad but necessary part of being a Hatchet knight. We’re prone to losing the people we’re close to.”

I’d been an orphan too, except I’d had no one to help me but a monastery of monks in Lebanon before I was kidnapped by the leader of the Vyantara.

She tipped her head to one side and said, “Follow me to the kitchen, Chalice. You can help me finish making cookies.” She frowned at the two men and made a shooing motion with her hands. “I’m sure these two can find something to do with themselves.”

Zeke rolled his eyes. “Sure, steal our grandchild so you can have her all to yourself. When is it
my
turn?”

“When I say so.” She marched toward the other end of the house and I followed.

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” I told Aurora as I watched her tug cookie sheets from a lower cupboard, “but I can’t cook.”

She winked at me. “There’s nothing to it, honey. Have you ever mixed a spell?”

I thought about the summoning ritual I’d performed to bring my fallen angel father across. “Sort of.”

She set the pans on the counter and placed a large mixing bowl filled with dough beside them. “A pinch of this, a dash of that, stir it all together and presto. You’re a cook.”

It couldn’t be that easy.

She handed me a spoon. “Scoop up a teaspoon of batter and plop it on the cookie sheet. Keep doing that until the bowl is empty.”

I stuck my finger in the batter for a taste. Peanut butter. Yummy.

Aurora smacked my hand. “None of that now. You’re as bad as your mother was.”

Wiping my hand on a towel, I asked, “What was she like?”

“Your mother? Headstrong, fearless, determined. A lot like you, I suspect.” She dumped two cups of flour into a large mixing bow. “Felicia was an amazing woman. I wish you’d had a chance to know her.”

“Me, too.” But all I had was one photo. Aydin had rescued it from a fire and saved it for me. It was a precious gift I’d cherish forever.

“You’re very lucky, you know,” Aurora said as she cracked an egg on the side of the bowl. “I don’t know of anyone who’s ever survived the gargoyle’s curse with their humanity intact.”

“I’m guessing you know the whole story about what happened to me?”

“In great detail.”

Of course she knew. She must have her finger on the pulse of the entire Hatchet order no matter how scattered they were. I guessed that Rafe kept her well informed about everything having to do with me. Everything he knew, anyway.

“I also know about the newly made gargoyle who used to be your friend.”

“Aydin is still my friend.” The flutter in my belly reminded me how my feelings ran deeper than mere friendship. “He may look different on the outside, but he’s the same man on the inside.”

My grandmother made a huffing noise. “Don’t be so sure.”

Her too? I plopped a glob of dough onto the pan. “You sound like Rafe.”

She looked at me and arched both her eyebrows. “Oh yes, you gave Raphael a nickname.” She chuckled. “Rafe. It suits him.”

I dug the spoon into the bowl. “I don’t get how he can be so judgy,” I said, then clamped my mouth shut before I could accuse her of being the same. We were just getting to know each other and I wanted her to like me. “I thought angels were supposed to be open-minded.”

“He worries about you, Chalice.”

I frowned, unused to anyone worrying about me unless they had an ulterior motive. It made me wonder if Rafe had one, too. “He’s a bit late, don’t you think?”

“Don’t be so hard on him. Your enslavement by the Vyantara wasn’t his fault.” Her voice sounded soft, but I heard the steel underneath.

“I’ve been on my own for a long time, Aurora. I know what’s best for me.”

She shrugged. “Maybe you do, but you have us now. Isn’t it time to let those who care about you into your life?”

I looked at her. “I’ve done that. Aydin cares about me. He saved my life.”

Aurora’s chest heaved with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll give you that. We would have lost you if not for him.”

Nodding, I said, “Exactly my point. Aydin’s a good man.”

“But he’s not a man anymore. And that’s
my
point.”