Everlasting (Night Watchmen, #1) (38 page)

A small, minuscule smirk lifts the left side of his mouth, bringing out his dimple. “Is there anything you can’t?”

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my smile from fully blooming. “Everyone has a weakness,” I say, looking away from him as I blush. I don’t need to add that I can see him becoming mine. He turns and I say, “Hey, about that favor.”

“Yeah?”

“I know what I want.” He tilts his head a little and raises his eyes. “I want you to promise me you’ll make it out of this alive.”

He grabs my hand. “And what about you?” he asks seriously.

I smirk. “I’m the Everlasting, remember?”

“Is this it?” Weldon asks near the small hole carved into the hill in front of us.

My eyes close, and I tune back into my senses. I can see Alesteria putting the Dagger in a wooden box, and then spelling the dirt to open up in front of her. The other half of the dagger lifts into the air under her command, and then slowly descends into the box.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “It’s buried in there.”

“Finally,” Jezi says. She starts forward. Cassie and Gavin follow. Weldon waits for me and Jaxen. His eyes dart around the forest and then squint. Jezi’s walking in, but Weldon grabs her arm. She flinches from his touch, trying to break free, but he holds her in place.

“Stop squirming,” he commands harshly. “We’re not alone.”

Gavin and Jaxen both spin around inside the mouth of the cavern, fluxes in hand.

“It’s dark. Darker than the spirits and this forest,” Cassie says, her eyes following an invisible trail.

I follow her gaze, and then my heart explodes into a cheetah’s pace. Dark shadows move through the trees on the hilltop above the cave. “Did you see that?” I ask, my body reacting even before my mind has. Power surges through me, coursing out through my hands.

“Witches,” Cassie says, scanning the forest with a snarl.

“Darkyn Witches,” Jezi adds.

As if summoned by the word, one by one, they appear behind the trees, bringing a dark, smoky mist with their movements. They take long strides forward, each wearing a black hooded robe. Black masks with creepy, odd-shaped horns adorn their faces and hide their identity from us. Laughter soars through the air on the wings of black crows, passing through the trees and wrapping around us.

But none of this is why my heart suddenly slams to a stop. None if this is why my tongue ties in irreversible knots. None of this is what leaves me feeling like I’ve been living within glass walls…every moment stolen, seen, witnessed, preyed upon.

Midnight strolls leisurely in between the legs of the Darkyn Witches sporting the Ouroboros on the front of their cloaks. I jerk to face Jaxen, and then call Midnight to me, praying that I have it all wrong, praying that he’s nothing more than a cat, and this is nothing more than a coincidence.

But I know better. In our world, there are no coincidences. Only facts.

“Come on,” I say under my breath, making kissy noises at him.

He leisurely hops off the edge of the cave, lands perfectly on all fours, and then casually strides over to me. I bend down to lift him, but he stops a few feet in front of me, sitting on his hind legs and staring up at me with large yellow eyes. The mist brought by the Witches carries over the hilltop and pours over the edge of the cave like a waterfall. It spreads toward us as if it has an intended destination, and then wraps around Midnight.

Jaxen yanks me back, and I swallow a scream the moment he begins to transform. The cat form falls away like a second skin, and from within the vortex of smoke and mist, rises a man. When he’s fully transformed, I stumble back into Jaxen’s arms, nearly pulling us both to the ground.

“He can’t…” I gasp. “This isn’t…” Another gasp. “Why?” I stop, feeling my control slipping through my fingers like water. My pulse pounds through every inch of my body. Pieces of memories, broken fragments of the puzzle I should have put together before, shift and click, jarring my conscience. “It was you,” I say, my hands falling slack by my sides. “The Grimoire. It was you.”

He towers over all of us, wearing a black suit with a red handkerchief sticking up from the front pocket. Cruel, soulless black eyes peer down at me beneath a furrowed, dark brow. They smile, even when his lips aren’t, filled with surety, confidence, strength. A strong, square jaw holds a thin-lipped smile meant to send fear into our hearts. Midnight black hair is slicked back atop his head.

He slithers toward me, uncoiling my composure with every demonic step. His presence seems to steal away the light of day. A welcoming grin brushes his lips, his arms opening in invitation as if he’s harmless. “Faye Middleton, at last we meet. I’m Bael, formally known as Midnight according to you,” he says, his voice warm, deep, and smooth like syrup. I’m shackled in place, stuck under his predatory gaze.

He waits for what feels like an eternity, his words slowly soaking in. I glance around, scared for the life of everyone I came to love and care about, even Jezi, who’s crouched down and pointing a sawed-off shot gun at him.

“What? You have nothing to say? No welcome?” He pretends to be wounded, and I want to hurt him. I want to cry. I want to pound my fists into him again and again and again for every sacred moment he’s taken by spying on me, but instead, I stand there, forgetting words, forgetting common sense, forgetting the training that will get us out of this.

He takes in a breath and turns to the hill, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess they don’t teach manners in Night Watchman school.” Laughter mocks us. It mocks me. He spins back around as their laughter echoes against the trees from the bizarrely masked audience above. High cackling, short bursts, loud booming…every type of laughter continues, and it pulls at my sanity. It makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

“How?” It’s Weldon. He’s the first to speak, the first to find his footing in this unforeseen chaos. The laughter ceases.

Bael lifts his chin in Weldon’s direction. His eyes flash bright yellow and narrow on him, unflinching. “Weldon, the tortured soul.” The mockery in his words and tone forms a fist in my throat.

“No thanks to you,” Weldon says, undeterred. “Answer the question.”

He runs a smooth hand over his tie. “Very easily, actually,” he says almost proudly. “Naturally, I can take the shape of a cat, a man, or a toad. If you narrow the options of which would easily be accepted by a woman such as Faye, the answer is pretty obvious.” His words are so well-spoken, so meaningful, so swaying, there’s no doubt that he’s a leader. “All thanks to your dear friend Katie, who found me and brought me to Faye, I was able to slip right in and slip right out when my form could no longer contain my identity.”

Hatred, anger, disappointment…it all seems to fire up the engine in my mind, fueling my ability to speak. I pick my eyes up from off the ground and force them back
on Bael, back on the one who will be the deciding factor of what happens to my parents. I have to find my courage. I have to show no fear.

“Why? What did you have to gain by spying on me?” I ask, surprised with how demanding I sound.

He turns in my direction, the movement so fluid, so precise, he could easily be mistaken for a dancer. He tilts his head at me, looking me over. Even though he bears the form of a man, his eyes betray him. They still hold a feline, almost perceptive quality, and they pass over me like I’m his next meal.

“Discovering who you are.” He leans into me, smelling of power and sulfur. “Discovering what makes you…tick.” His breath trails down my neck, and I cringe, my hand tightening around the hilt of my flux. My eyes flick down to his side. Is that where is stigma is? I think about stabbing him until his blood runs dry, until the horrible taste in my mouth is gone, until I can’t tell his body from the ground, but I remain still, knowing if I miss his stigma, we’ll be in it deeper.

Jaxen pulls me away from him, his veins bulging on his spark-filled arms and neck.

Bael’s eyes flash down to my hand perceivably, and then a smile twists his lips. When he looks at me again, I know he knows. And he’s proud. He’s proud that I want to kill him, proud that I’m thinking of it. It’s all right there in his eyes, waiting for me to pluck. He looks to Jaxen, and his jaw tightens. “You have,” he pauses, licks his lips, smiles, and says, “trained our little Everlasting well.” He offers his hand out, waiting for Jaxen to take, and then pulls back with a laugh. “I’m only kidding. I know you’re too tough around the edges for a bit of formality.”

“What do you want?” Jaxen says, his words each filled with enough venom to stop a heart on the spot.

But Bael is immune. All signs of amusement vanish as he stiffens. He straightens himself out and clears his throat. “The Dagger. We knew of Faye’s bloodline holding one half, and we knew the roundabouts of the other,” he gazes around the forest with his arms up, “but being bound to the Underground, we had no means of pinpointing its exact location. Only she…”

He’s pointing to me. Through me.

“Has the ability to find, touch, and restore the Dagger.” With a snap of his fingers, Demons appear behind each of us, their large, beastly hands wrapping around and pinning us to them.

“Faye, you have to…” Jaxen starts to say, but Bael snaps his gaze toward him, and all at once, Jaxen’s lips disappear.

A scream sits in my throat, held back only by the delirium of the way things are vastly slipping away from me.

“Any of you make another move, and I’ll end not only her parents’ lives, but the lives of your Witches as well. If you don’t believe I have that ability, go ahead and try me,” Bael threatens, looking to Gavin and Weldon who are strong-arming their Demons. They freeze on the spot.

Bael takes his time walking up to Jaxen who has given up struggling. “How does it feel to have the odds stacked against you?” Bael asks Jaxen. “To feel…weak?” His eyes
widen on the word, knowing he’s struck a soft spot. He knows that word hurt more than any spell could. He waits for a second, turns his ear to listen, and then looks back at him, smiling darkly. “Oh right, you can’t answer.”

Jaxen struggles wildly against the Demon holding him, his face contorting, trying to find his lips. I find his eyes, and the moment we connect, he stills and goes limp. Buckets of ice cold sorrow and regret dump over me. Over him.

Bael grabs my arm, his touch searing my skin through my leather jacket. I keep my eyes on Jaxen’s, knowing this may be it. I may never see him again. I may never know his touch, his kiss, his love, but I’m grateful for the time I did have. I’m grateful for everything he’s given me, and with a look, he knows. He nods, and then his head hangs.

“Young love, so…touching,” Bael says, yanking me away from them. He sounds disgusted. His grip squeezes me, cutting off the blood flow to my arm. My pulse throbs in the crook of my arm, and I keep my mind on it, using it to keep me present. Awake. Aware. “Now
, this is how it’s going to go,” Bael says forcibly. “You’re going to walk me into that cave, and together, we’re going to find the other half of this Dagger. When it’s found, restored, and placed in my hands, I’ll let your friends go.”

I don’t ask about myself, because I already know. I’m not going anywhere with them. I’m not going home.

I try to swallow the shards of glass in my throat, but it’s pointless. “And my parents?” I ask, hating my voice for breaking.

We enter the cave, darkness slipping up around us, and he stops and spins me to face him. His expression is every little girl’s nightmare. He’s every ugly thing in the world. He’s everything I’ve never wanted, and everything I’m now stuck to.

“I’ll hold off on killing them until after we get the Dagger. That way, you can see them before they die.”

I’m mute with terror as cruel reality chokes my ability to believe. My parents are going to die because of it. Because of a stupid cat I took in.

What are the odds?

He shoves me forward, steering
me recklessly around the cave. In his hand is a flashlight he shines over my shoulder. The small white beam brightens small crooks and crevices, and a narrow path appears straight ahead of us. Spider webs cover every surface like thin sheets of cotton candy. Small trickling streams of mineral water drip down from various gouged pieces of clay and rock. Little beady eyes peer up and then scatter across the uneven ground.

I don’t know how I’ve wound up here. I can’t fathom why his hand is on my shoulder. I want to fight. Every cell in my body is willing me to, but my brain has other plans. I can’t fight, not yet, not until I have the other piece of the Dagger, not until it’s safe with me.

“It must be awful to be you right now,” Bael says, still holding onto my arm.

The sound of his voice is increased from the hollowness of the cave. I feel it slither in my ears and wrap around my throat, choking my ability to speak. My teeth grind against each other, staving off the need to run, to flee, to free myself of this ungodly person.

“I mean, knowing that you’re going to lose your parents, and still having no choice or means to save them.” He snorts and chuckles. “That would drive me mad. If I were human, I mean. Which I’m not, so…”

Although my stomach’s a steel barrel full of acid sloshing around, I remain silent, my brain firing rapidly, trying to find a solution. There has to be a way, something I can do, some small detail I’ve overlooked that can help me out of this mess. I’m alone. I’m latched on to by a demonic virus. I’m thrown off-guard and scrambling for air.

“It really was too easy,” he continues, his sneering tone nipping at me. He’s jesting, poking, prodding at my composure. He’s trying to break me down, each word a knife he uses to slice me open. I imagine how I’m going to kill him before he speaks again. “You were all so easy to manipulate. It’s really quite amusing.”

My jaw locks in anger. My lips are thinned with hate, and somehow, my tongue forms words. “I don’t know what you mean by that. You didn’t manipulate anyone. We took a scraggly, stray cat in. That’s nothing to brag about, especially being the leader of an army,” I say evenly, pointedly, strategically. “I mean, seriously, that’s child’s play. You couldn’t think of a better way to infiltrate?” I stop, spin, and lock eyes with him, holding him in place. “Or is it that you like being a pussycat?”

He strikes me hard across the face. Sharp, searing pain spreads across my cheeks like fire. Violence pulses behind his soulless eyes. “Don’t think for a second that you’re too precious to hurt. There are ways I can torture you without ever laying a single finger on you, ways that will haunt you for the rest of your life.” His lips are curled, and his eyes are wild with hatred and loathing.

I hate that Jaxen flashes behind my eyes. I hate that I see my parents lying in their own blood. I hate it because I know that’s what he’s threatening. That’s his intent, to startle and unbind me, to uncoil me strand by strand until I’m nothing but unraveled string in his palms.

And it’s working.

He shoves me forward again, forcing me deeper into the cave. “Everything I do has a purpose. Every move made against your silly little Watchmen Academy was strategically thought out. The old Vampire dropped in the enchanted forest...he weakened the spell circling the campus for us. The first attack...it was meant as a distraction so I could enter the grounds. It was also a nudge to Maddock. You can’t think of Darkyns without thinking or Mourdyn and the Dagger.

“So after he had given you the book, I stepped in and tried to place hints. I knew the moment I saw your Grimoire that half of the Dagger was hidden within it, but no matter how many times I scratched at it, you just didn’t get it.” His face twists into something menacing. “Do you know how painstakingly annoying that was? I just wanted to shake you.”

“You scratched me.”

“Well, yes, there’s that, but honestly, it was there in plain sight, and still, you didn’t get it. So we went through with the attack during your trial. It was meant as a threat to Maddock and his Elders. I knew news of this attack would filter back to Ethryeal City, and then everyone would know for sure that we would rise again.

“But still, you managed to scrape your way out and still not understand what I was trying to tell you through the Grimoire, so I had you attacked during your hunt as a verbal warning. I knew this was the only way your narrow-minded self would finally understand. If you didn’t, I knew you would tell Maddock and he would spell it out for you.

“I waited until I knew for sure that you’d take matters into your own hands, and then left when I could no longer be near you, and now we’re here. Caught up and feeling stupid, right?” The amusement in his voice is as thick as honey.

I glare, and my fists form into tight knots that I’m sure could crush through him.

He shoves me forward again, laughing to himself as he flashes the light all around. I don’t know how much time has passed, but it feels like forever. It feels like a painful eternity. The cave grows colder and colder, but my body grows warmer from the use of my muscles.

“We should be close. You did the location spell so you should still be able to sense…see…however it is you Witches do it, where the Dagger is.”

“I haven’t seen anything yet,” I say, sounding as numb as I feel.

We approach a small fork-one path dips down into darkness, and another continues straight. He flashes the light left, then right, and then huffs. “You have exactly 30 seconds to figure out which way before one of your friends out there dies.”

An avalanche of panic crashes down on me. My chest caves in on my heart. A steel vice squeezes my brain, crushing my thoughts. I can’t breathe. I have to breathe. I can’t think. I have to think. Something. I have to see something. Something has to happen. I clench my eyes shut, praying the woman I saw before appears. Praying for a miracle.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

Eight seconds left to panic. Eight seconds left to get it right.

“Five, four, three…”

Nothing. Still nothing.

“One.”

I head into the darkness to the left, hoping I made the right choice. We have to hold onto the walls for support since the ground is sloped down, carrying us further into the earth.

“That was close,” he muses, his hand still wrapped around my arm. “Tell me, Faye Middleton, did you see, or was that a guess?”

“She went this way,” I say without hesitation. I don’t trust him not to kill my friends if he thinks, even for a second, that I’m lying. “I saw it.”

He chuckles to himself and I know he doesn’t believe me. “Good answer.”

We walk further and further into the darkness until we’re both bent completely over and taking tiny steps. Claustrophobia is a white leather jacket buckled around me, binding my arms to my sides. I’m panting, sweating, and on the verge of crying or throwing up or both. I don’t know that I’ve made the right choice. I don’t know anything, and it makes me physically ill. I gag once, and he squeezes my arm so hard I swear he could break bone.

“Do. Not. Be. Weak.”

I shut my eyes and almost scream when I open them again. But the woman standing before me stifles my scream. It’s the same ghostly image I saw entering the cave before. She’s staring straight at me with such intent. Her eyes are largely rounded and brown like fresh sap pouring from a tree. Her hair, platinum like mine, frames her face and is choppy. She has sharp, angled features and hollow cheekbones. She looks fierce, like a Hunter should look. She waves her hand through the air, beckoning me forward.

“See something?” he asks as I continue forward.

“Yes.”

“You’re lucky.”

I am. Very.

We keep going, following the thin steps of Alesteria as she shows me the way to the Dagger. The air is thick and has a crude taste, like dirt and death. I want to take my jacket off, to feel air against my sweat-soaked skin, but I don’t because that would take away the layer protecting me from his touch. And it could cause hypothermia. I brush the hair that’s fallen out of my ponytail and stuck to my face back behind my ears.

The rocks move closer and closer together, and I swear we can’t go any further, when suddenly they open up. I take a huge breath of relief as her form crouches down over a spot on the clay. “There,” I say, pointing to it so he can shine the light.

The light hits the ground and spreads out, awakening deep, dark shadows in the cave. On the ground, where Alesteria’s form disappears, rests a small symbol. The symbol of our Coven. He shoves me to the ground and dust flies up, filling my eyes, nose, and mouth. I cough and spit and blink rapidly, using the clean part of my jacket to rub my eyes.

“Hurry,” he says coldly.

When I can see enough, I brush the dust aside on the floor. A metal plate holds the symbol. Before Alesteria had disappeared, I noticed she had pressed her palm against it before looking up at me. I do the same, and will my magic to connect with it. The moment I do, I fall on my butt, thrown by the force of the spell hiding the Dagger. Bael staggers back against a large rock wall, and the flashlight falls from his hand and rolls toward me.

I pick it up and hold it over the metal plate in front of me just as he appears beside me. I think he wants to hurt me, but he doesn’t, because whatever is happening in front of us is more appealing. The metal plate parts open like a small door, and then the other half of the Dagger appears inside an opened wooden box. My mouth is a deserted wasteland of conflicting emotions. Relief, regret…I can’t tell which is what and which is right to feel.

“Grab it,” he says as dust and small bits of rock continue to fall around us.

I do. What other option do I have?

He takes the light from me. “The other half, get it.” He’s excited now. I can hear his smile. I can feel his anticipation.

I pull my bag off my back and watch as the material appears. My movements are slow, so he doesn’t suspect anything, doesn’t think for a moment that I might try something.

“Banshee cloth?” He gazes at it, seeming mildly impressed.

I open it and wrap my hand around the other half of the Dagger. The light on the flashlight flickers and quits. He starts beating it, trying to turn it back on.

This is my only chance. I can’t just hand it to him, and I don’t think any one of my friends out there or in the Academy would want me to either. This isn’t about saving my life or their life; this is about being the light inside of darkness. I pull the other half of the Dagger out and sink it deep into Bael with every bit of volation I can muster.

He cries out as my energy crackles around him, encompassing him, and then stumbles back against the cavern walls. I stand, pushing all of my power against him, trying to break him down, but then fire rises up around him, encasing him in all his fury. He roars, the sound so loud and deep it shakes the cavern walls. It dispels every bit of my volation. I lose footing and fall as he rips the piece out of his stomach and casts it to the ground.

“You dare!” he shouts, the sound demonic and loud. His hand sizzles from where it touched the blade. “Who do you think I am? Who do you think you’re dealing with!?” The sound of a thousand horse hooves beating against the ground surrounds me, and I scurry back. “I’m the King of Hell! I’m not some Demon that you can squash with a stigma. I invented stigmas!”

I reach for the other piece of the Dagger and hold them both in my hands, staggering back along the ground. He rises higher in the cave, his feet turning into large, black hooves, and black, demonic wings stretching out from his back. Fire burns in his eyes and soul, and all I can think of is Jaxen and my parents and all the things I never did, all the things I should have said.

Regret is a scar on the soul. It hea
ls, but it never leaves us. I’ll take that to my grave.

“You dare to disobey? You dare to defy me?” He lifts his hand up into the air, and a fiery whip appears, the blazing ends ready to lick at my soft skin. “I will strike you down to the Underground where you will pay.” His arm swings, and I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for the moment everything stops, but the moment never comes.

Two strong arms wrap around me and pull me back into a shadow. I don’t fight it. I don’t know if this is death or my saving grace, but either way, I’ll go with my dignity. It isn’t until light surrounds me and the smell of sulfur and fire is a distant memory, that I know I’m safe. I have escaped.