Keeper Chronicles: Awakening (28 page)

“Welcome to my humble home.” He gestured.

“It’s...nice.”

Gabe laughed. “No, it’s not. But you know what it is?”

“What?”

“Isolated. Quiet.” He turned and looked back at the coastline. “No one to bother me or come to visit. I don’t have to pretend to be anything but what I am, here.”

“Like your own fortress of solitude.”

He laughed again, rubbing a hand through his curly hair, and walked toward the red stone tower. “Yeah. Like that. Only with demons.”

Turning in a slow circle, she took in the barren rock, the wooden shack of a home, and the elegant stone tower rising up through the fog, its beam piercing the darkness. Yeah. She could see the appeal.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked, following him inside. The walls were decorated with weapons, more than she even knew existed. She walked over to one wall, letting her fingers run across machetes, crossbows, about a dozen knives, several hatchets and swords, even a few things that looked suspiciously like grenades.

“Since we broke up.” Gabe put the shovel in the corner and took off his pack, tossing it by the bed. “Your father was head of the council back then, and he decided that this lighthouse needed young blood to revive it. Before I got here, it’d been abandoned for several decades.”

She turned to look at him. “My father did this to you? Sent you here?”

“Yeah.” His voice dropped, and he never broke eye contact. “I guess he thought that I couldn’t be trusted to stay around you.”

Remembering how hurt she’d been, how angry at Gabe, made her blush. Gabe had been as much a victim as she had. “So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know about you,” he said, taking off his shirt and tossing it in a basket in the corner. For a second, before he spoke again, she thought he was going to say something very different. “But I’m hungry. Want to eat?”

He put a clean shirt on but not, however, before she saw the hundreds of scars across his back and arms and chest. Like someone had run him over with a lawn mower or tossed him in a garbage disposal. Was she going to look like that, too? No wonder they tried to keep her from this life. She felt like a selfish monster.

“Sure. Got anything good?”

Gabe looked from one side of the small house to the other. “Not really. But I’ve got a hot plate so at least it’ll be warm.”

Heating up a few cans of beef macaroni, they sat at the table to eat. “So,” he asked, taking a bite, “Are you going to show me that book or what?”

She sat it on the table between them. “I forgot I was even holding this. Do you know what it is?”

“A journal, I would think. This looks older than most of the ones I’ve seen, though. Have you opened it?” His fingers traced the bindings.

“No.” Eating a spoonful of his concoction, she winced. “You’re right. This isn’t that good.”

He laughed like she hadn’t seen him laugh since they were kids. “I wouldn’t lie, would I?”

She arched an eyebrow. “What about that time you told me you were abducted by an alien and taken to their ship for tests?”

“I was eleven. Surely you can’t still hold that against me?”

Rebekah pretended to think about it for a moment. “Well...I guess not. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Not at all.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes as the sun, having finally burned through the fog, pierced through the sky lights in golden rays that warmed up the small house, making it look less like a dungeon. At his urging, she opened up the journal and looked inside. The yellowing pages were crisp as she gingerly turned them, filled with page after page of sketches: creatures with two heads or extra arms, hybrids of different animals, partially human mixes. Some were familiar from mythology and stories; others were just crazy beyond imagination.

The margins and empty spaces were filled with handwritten notes penned in black ink, tips about how to kill the creatures and warnings about the different ways they might attack. On some of them, the ink had begun to crack and fade. They might have been hundreds of years old. Maybe more. Some of the pages had other notes—births, deaths, historical events both important and forgotten by history.

Night had fallen by the time they got most of the way through the book. The handwriting had changed dozens of times, but when they got toward the back, she stopped. She knew that handwriting. It was her father’s.

Rebekah closed the book. “I...I don’t think I’m ready to read these yet.”

“That’s okay.”

“I need some fresh air.”

Getting up, she walked outside into the chill air. The island was small, so there wasn’t much room to pace. Then she looked up. Out so far away from land, the stars lit the sky, their light twinkling beautifully. Arms at her sides, she stood with her head craned backwards. A feeling hit her suddenly, like a twinge. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what or where, but the feeling was impossible to ignore and growing stronger each second.

Danger.

She saw it a moment later. Tentacle-like arms groped up the side of the island, eight in total, with big suckers on the bottom. Pulling on the rocks, they scrabbled across the little island, blindly searching. Paralyzed by fear, she couldn’t move. She could only watch as the head rose up last, an ugly ashen blob with eyes and mouths in all the wrong places. The squid-like head looked from one side to the other before focusing in on her with an intenseness that seemed to exclude everything else.

She was going to die.

Her father had been right not to tell her the truth; she wasn’t strong enough for this. She didn’t have the courage to take on monsters every day. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run, to flee the creature as fast as she could. But she couldn’t move. Where could she hide from something like that? It was going to eat her with one of its four mouths.

Sooner rather than later.

Nothing she could do would stop it.

The thing reared up, using its tentacles for support as it pushed itself forward toward her. As its shadow fell over her, Gabe’s voice broke through the paralysis.

“Beks! Get out of the way!”

The thing screeched in pain, the sound like a thousand daggers in her mind as it reared up, flung backwards by a crossbow bolt in one of its eyes. Pushing her behind him, Gabe shot it twice more. With a final shriek, the squid-like demon convulsed and slid off the side of the island and into the ocean.

Her heart racing like she’d just run a marathon, Rebekah collapsed to her knees and hyperventilated, struggling to catch her breath. She’d seen the demon Gabe had killed near the bed-n-breakfast, had seen the freaky blue energy memory demon, even faced down one in the woods, but nothing in all of that prepared her for a monster like that.

“Take deep breaths.” He crouched next to her and rubbed her back. “That’s it. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you now.”

“Was that...?”

“A demon?” he finished for her. “Yes.”

She took a few more deep breaths. “But I thought...I mean, there was no storm.”

“Come on.” Gabe helped her stand and started leading her back into the house. “Let’s sit down. There’s a few more things you need to know.”

Telling her a few of the things she needed to know ended up taking about an hour. She listened quietly, trying not to freak out as he explained about gates and portals and things she’d never thought to have to learn. If he’d been trying to scare her, he succeeded. When they finally settled in to sleep—him on a chair near the table and her in the bed—she couldn’t close her eyes for fear that another demon would come through while she slept.

“Gabe?” Rebekah whispered.

His answer was quick. “Yeah.”

“Remember when we were kids and our families went camping together and sometimes, if there was a storm, you would come into the tent with me to keep me safe? Help me sleep?”

“Yes.”

Rebekah took a deep breath. “I thought I heard lightning.”

“Oh. Well, I’d better come over, hadn’t I?” His voice carried no hint of mockery or sarcasm. She scooted forward in the bed so he’d have room behind her.

His bed was small, and for them both to fit, he had to lay on his side, cradling her in front of him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, taking his hand and pulling it around her waist as she snuggled back into him. “I don’t think I could do this without you.”

Gabe kissed the back of her neck.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Colette woke to find her husband snoring lightly beside her, a blanket pulled over them both. Doing her best not to wake him, she pulled back the covers to check where the door had nearly crushed his chest, but gauze bandages disguised the extent of his injuries.

Instead of disturbing him more or getting up, she turned on her side and rested her head lightly on his shoulder, content to listen to his heartbeat, to feel the rise and fall of his chest.

Eight years she’d been hunting; him, longer.

If she tried to count the number of times they’d been almost killed by some demon or other, she’d be in the triple digits. The upper triple digits. Until recently, the brushes with death hadn’t bothered her. Danger had been as much a part of her life as killing since she was old enough for her awakening, so the extra hazards of the Hunter lifestyle had seemed like an acceptable risk to save other girls. No matter how hard they’d worked, how dedicated they’d been to tracking demons, things like this still happened. Those girls—the security guards killed in the fire—none of them deserved their fate any more than her sister had.

A soft knock at the door pulled her back to the present.

“Hunter?” someone whispered. He stuck his head in the door, and she recognized him as the nurse who must have sedated her the night before. Great.

She nodded and shooed him back.

Separating herself from Nicholas, she sat up and looked around for her clothing once the nurse had left. Her clothes seemed to have disappeared, but two neatly-folded stacks of something rested on a chair near the makeshift outer wall composed of plywood sheets roughly nailed together. With the exception of the chair and bed, the small room was unfurnished. It didn’t even have a ceiling. Faint noises—footsteps, hushed voices, something scraping—drifted in above the makeshift walls as she pulled on a pair of jeans a few sizes too large and a sweater that hung off her like a sack.

Baggy clothes could trip her up in the heat of battle or slow her at the wrong time. She’d have to find something else.

But that could wait until she talked to the doctor who worked on Nicholas. Shutting the door behind her, she slipped out of the room and into the hall where the nurse waited. She thought about how he’d sedated her the night before, like putting down an animal, and considered punching him for good measure. Nicholas wouldn’t want that, however. “Is the doctor still here—Petrova, wasn’t it? I’d like to talk to her.”

He gestured down makeshift hall, ever formal. “She got called away for another emergency, Hunter, but your companion will recover fine with just a few days’ rest. Thanks to the tranquilizer you administered, he was unconscious through the worst of it. That was smart thinking.”

Glancing at her from over his shoulder, he was silent for a moment as if expecting something. Colette stopped. “Is that all you wanted...?”

“No. Elder Sloan wants a word with you. First, however, I must insist that you let me check your injuries.”

“Just be quick.” Rolling her eyes, she accepted his poking and prodding with as much grace as she could muster. Every delay meant that bastard Adam was that much further away from being caught. A few days’ rest... Who did this nurse think he was dealing with? For a Hunter, a few days rest was tantamount to murder. She might as well hand the First his next victim. Put a bow around the girl’s neck.

He straightened up. “All done. You seem to be healing fine. Any dizziness? Headaches?”

“No.” Although he probably thought her rude, Colette didn’t care. Relationships between Hunters and Keepers could be tense; especially as, officially, Hunters were outside their jurisdiction and governance of the local Keeper councils. It gave them the freedom to do what they had to do no matter the consequences.

He led her through the mazelike warehouse structure—a collection of mostly small bedrooms and offices—to a room with better furnishings than the others. Leather couches, an elegant bookshelf, and the kind of desk you might expect to see in a CEO’s office were tastefully arranged. Pacing the overhead walkways, a pair of guards with automatic weapons looked down at her. No one here would have an unguarded moment, even in what amounted to a bedroom. Interesting.

“Elder Sloan.” She didn’t bother to sit down. “You requested me?”

“Indeed.” Standing, he gestured to the chair in front of his table. So it was going to be like that was it? She crossed her arms. “Very well,” he said after a moment. “Suit yourself. I do believe it’s protocol to inform the local counsel whenever a Hunter is in the area, correct? Had that happened, perhaps we would have been prepared to clean up your mess. As things stand, it took all my political pull to silence the rumors. The factory...the hotel...then the car—you have a habit of leaving quite a trail of destruction in your wake, Hunter.”

“Your point?”

The elder’s face reddened. He wasn’t a man used to being questioned or ordered around in his own home. “When might we be expecting your departure?”

“As soon as we have found the demon’s next target. Do I have to remind you that your assistance isn’t compulsory?” Putting her fists on the desk, she leaned forward. “One phone call and I can have you removed from office or relocated somewhere more fitting your...talents. Do I need to make that call?”

Lips curling into a snarl, he nevertheless shook his head no. “Tell me what you need.”

“Everything. Bring me copies of every missing person, every fatal accident, and every possible low-security target overlaid on a map of the region. Digitized, of course.” Turning, she walked out of his office and back toward the room she shared with Nicholas. Let him stew. He’d give her what she wanted or she’d have him guarding a lighthouse in Antarctica.

By the time Elder Sloan gathered the information, Nicholas woke up and they were finishing a rather large breakfast as she filled him in on everything he’d missed after the hotel. The information, loaded up on a touchscreen laptop, came delivered by someone she’d not yet seen—a young girl, barely nine or ten.