Minutes to Midnight (7 page)

Up until this point I'd only used that spell
to destroy changelings and killer plants. I didn't want to hurt a
living person.

It sounded as if Stella's
voice had come from my left, so that was the direction I dodged. I
didn't dare shout out to her again. I didn't want him to re-site
and aim at
her
. Or
what might be her. I still wasn't completely convinced she was
really here and not safe in Atlanta doing her job. Could be a
facsimile for all I knew. Even a doppelgänger.

That's when the sun disappeared.

Darkness.

Nice trick. That meant she could be two feet
in front of me under something and I'd never know it. Or I could
run off in one direction and become hopelessly lost. Best thing to
do was illuminate everything.

Another bullet pinged off the top of the
piece of wall. I didn't know what kind of gun Officer Jones Rippin'
Ja— had. I really needed to pay more attention to Mike when he
tried to educate me on firearms. I didn't know how many bullets he
had. Either way, I had to get a light up into the air so I could
see better, but I also needed to create shadows I could hide
in.

I chose a moon light spell Sam had taught me
while she was here. The light would be bright enough to see by and
it would make shadows. Lots of shadows.

I was going to have to sacrifice a bit of
energy to send it up, but I had to see where I was going. I
absently wondered if there was a spell in the book for night
sight.

Another thought occurred to me. If I shot
him, blasted him, banished it, or whatever—what guarantee was there
that I'd get out of wherever it was he'd taken us? There was the
possibility I could wander around forever in this haunted
forest.

That idea scared the hell out of me, more
than getting shot did.

I cranked up the amperage
and sent as much power as I thought I would need into the thought
before I whispered,
"Immaru."
A ball of soft blue light shot into the air. It
did what I wanted it to and more, casting everything in a blue haze
within a half-mile area. The piece of concrete I was hiding behind
was part of a larger building to my right. More of it, still
intact, now visible under the artificial moon.

And there, propped up against the wall of
that building, sat a struggling figure. Whoever it was, Stella or
not, they were restrained and needed help. I moved to the farthest
side of the piece of wall and guessed how long it would take me to
sprint through more of the debris, get to her, free her and then
get out of the way of Officer Jones Rippin' Ja—

"That was stupid. That just
made you visible." I felt a hand on the back of my neck. He shoved
me forward into the dirt and pushed his knee into my back. The
force pressed my face down and I tasted a bit of the fine ashy dirt
and spit it out. I heard the clink of the handcuffs again as
Officer Jones Rippin' Ja— grabbed my right wrist and folded that
arm behind my back and then pulled up on it, trying to make my
wrist even with my neck. I yelled out because it
hurt
and balled my hands
into fists. Both of them.

Creating the tiny moon made me a bit light
headed, but there was no way I was going to lay there and let him
handcuff me. I closed my eyes and focused on the book. And the book
answered.

I heard the jingle of the cuffs and he
laughed. "I'll just bind your wrists, snap on the leg irons, and
you'll be ready for delivery."

"What's—" I tasted that nasty ash again and
choked before I could finish my question. "What's so special about
cuffs? You think they'll stop magic?"

"Actually—they will." He laughed behind me.
"In fact, they'll nullify all of your magic and make you little
more than a sniveling, puny human."

Oh….
shit
. Was that possible? I sure as
hell didn't want to find out.

When he pulled his knee off
me to grab my other arm, conveniently still tucked under my chest,
I turned into him, into the side he was holding. Having his captive
roll toward him disoriented him enough to make him hesitate. That's
when I pulled my free hand out, reached over, and grabbed his
chin….
"Immaru!"

I wasn't ready for the strength and
intensity of the power that flowed out of my hand. The officer's
body tensed as he released me. His eyes rolled back into his head
and he shook violently before he collapsed on top of me. Something
very large and very dark and very powerful fled Officer Jones's
body. It hovered above me and and smelled like raw sewage as it
writhed and undulated in the air. I managed to get Jones off of me,
but the arm he'd twisted up behind me wasn't working. It was out of
its socket and hung limply at my side.

ABYSMAL FIRE! YOU ARE NO GUARDIAN! WHAT SORT
OF MONSTER HAS SHE BROUGHT TO US?

The voice filled everything, including my
mind. And whatever Ripp'n Ja— was, I had this sinking feeling it
wasn't Abysmal. And it wasn't Ethereal. But it was bad. And I'd
just pissed it off.

"Darren!"

Stella!

The thing continued to move about in the air
over the tops of the spooky trees. I pushed myself up against the
piece of wall and started toward her. But my light vanished,
swallowed by Mister Big and Spooky hovering in the air like a huge
cloud of nasty. I took a step toward her and met with something
solid.

NO DEAL. SHE'S MINE NOW.

Abruptly the haunted forest, the ruined
castle, and the figure vanished. I fell about three feet onto the
pavement, onto my injured arm. I cried out, and hands caught me.
They rested on the sides of my face. "Dags, open your eyes.
Dags!"

That was Mike. I opened my eyes and saw him
looking down at me. He looked worried, and his hands were moving
expertly over my body. When he got to my shoulder I hissed and he
put a hand to my cheek again. "Sshh. It's dislocated. I need you to
hold still, okay? Darius, can you brace him?"

"We searched this alley a dozen times and he
wasn't here. Now he is? Where the fuck did he come from? And look
at him. He's covered in ash."

"I can see that, Dar. Just hold him."'

"Why is he shaking like that?"

My teeth clacked against each other as I
shook violently. My skin felt hot and I was sweating. Every muscle
burned when I moved. I'd felt like this once before; the first time
I came out of the Cairn to Alfheim.

Mike grabbed my arm, and I knew what was
coming and it was gonna hurt like a mother.

"I think that cop's dead over there."

Cop? I turned my head and saw Jones's
smoldering body just past Darius's knee.

Mike turned and shoved my upper arm. Agony
shot through my shoulder, down my chest to my toes and shorted out
the lights.

THREATS

Sometimes I wish I could find a magic mirror
and ask it to wipe away every memory I had so I could start over.
That's what moving to Savannah was supposed to be. A time for new
beginnings. Forget the nagging in the back of my head, the voice
that told me there was more to come. That beings far older and
meaner existed…and they wanted what was in my chest.

No.

They didn't just want it.
They believed they
owned
what was there.

One being in particular held the strings.
She'd been a constant bruise in the corner of my mind, brushing up
against my conscious and unconscious thoughts, building a fear that
one day she'd appear to me again and take me, the way she
threatened to.

So when I opened my eyes and saw her
standing there in all her Angelic glory, panic overrode any other
pain I felt in my shoulder as I scrambled to get off the bed and
away from her. But she was fast and had her hand on my throat
before I could draw a breath. She didn't choke me, or cut off my
air—well not totally. She made it impossible for me to cry out for
Mike or utter a spell. I hadn't ever tried one of the spells
against her. I was terrified what the consequences would be if I
tried and failed.

Gabriel was a Cherubim, a
protector of the Throne of the Seraphim, the ruler of Heaven. The
Angelic and Dark Worlds had similar hierarchies, with nearly
mirrored pairs. The Dark had the Phantasm seated in the Dark
Throne. His protectors would have been the First Born, if they
hadn't been forced out into the Material World by one of their own.
It was a story I remembered reading in a First Born's journal that
now rested inside the
Grimoire
. One of the Phantasm's own
children took over his Throne, destroyed him, and then took power,
successfully ridding the Dark World of its Throne's protectors.
Except for two.

One was named Inanna, and the other was her
younger brother, Azrael. The usurper allowed them to stay, until
Inanna's Book of Shadows was found and she was also expelled from
home, leaving Azrael at the mercy of his father's usurper.

And Inanna's Book of
Shadows? You guessed it. It's the basis of the
Grimoire
inside of me.

I was still a bit hazy on the powers of a
Cherubim. I knew they could manipulate people and objects in the
Material World and, if they chose, inhabit human bodies the same
way as the First Borns did. But whereas the Dark First Borns didn't
have any reservations about sharing physical form, the Cherubim
were proud and hated humans. Believed them to be little more than
monkeys or cattle. I'd heard, before I left Atlanta, that the last
time a Cherubim took a human body, thousands of people died in gas
chambers.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure
out whose body they took. But the burning question for me, the one
no one ever wanted to answer, was what happened to the essence of
the Cherubim or the First Born if their human hosts died and they
didn't take a new host? Were they still here? Lingering in the
between of the Spirit World? Or forever trapped somewhere
incomprehensible?

More importantly, did
I
really
want to
know? Because right now, my immediate concern was wondering what
Gabriel wanted and why she was in my bedroom.

I don't know what she looked
like to a normal person, meaning someone without the little Planar
abilities of Mind, Spirit, and Outer Worlds. To me, she looked like
Switch from
The Matrix
. Sort of a reverse goth. White hair, white leather trench,
white boots, and white tight-fitting bodysuit. Her eyes were the
color of aquamarine, catlike as they sloped up on the outer edges.
Her lips were the same white as her clothing and hair.

And she
glowed
.

"What the hell are you doing?" she hissed,
and tightened her grip. "You disappeared from this world again and
I couldn't sense you. I warned you not to do that ever again,
Guardian."

I tried to answer but couldn't, so I put my
hands on her wrist and coughed. It took her a few seconds before
she relinquished her hold but she stayed very close, making it
impossible for me to roll off the bed away from her. I swallowed a
few times before speaking and my voice came out a little huskier
than usual. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"After what you did when you got here? No
damn way, Guardian. You endangered everything by going into
Alfheim. I wrote a part of me on the page I placed in that book."
She arched a pale white brow. "That way I always know where you
are. So when you disappeared the other day, I sensed it."

"You've been watching me this whole
time?"

She moved so close we were nose-to-nose.
Ever been nose-to-nose with an Angel? It's freakin' terrifying.
"Why did you go back?"

Wait…the other day? What day was today?

"I…I don't know where we went." So I gave
her an abbreviated version of what'd happened after Officer Jones
and I stepped into the alley between the two bars.

When I was done, she grabbed my injured
shoulder and squeezed, then slapped her other hand over my mouth
when I tried to yell out. She leaned in and sniffed, and then
abruptly let go and took several steps back. I propped myself up on
my good elbow. "What?" My shoulder throbbed so bad my eyes teared
up.

"I told you—I threatened
you—I
ordered
you
to never return to that World."

I frowned up at her. "Uh…what World? The one
with the trees and the ruins and ash? I've never been there—I told
you, I didn't recognize it."

She came back at me, her
hand once again around my neck. She didn't cut off the air supply
this time, but held me down on the bed. "Don't play the fool with
me. You went back to Alfheim—you went back to the
'
Pheral
." She
hissed.