Betrayed (9 page)

“Yes, it’s pretty new, but I don’t know anything about an extra power source.” Except a demonic one and that wasn’t open for discussion. “Just drop them off whenever. If I’m not home, use the side door.”

“Okay. See ya.”

I gave Remy back his cel phone. “Thanks.”

“You okay?” he asked.

Nodding, I stared out the window. I didn’t want to talk or answer questions. Remy eased out of the parking lot, waved to Sykes, who was entering Christie’s car, and basical y left me alone. Winter in the val ey was just as breathtaking as the fal , yet the passing scenery bugged me. I wanted things to go back to normal with me not hunting, just training. No Valafar. No medium. No hot demoness after my boyfriend. No List, whatever was on it.

We entered Center Street, cut through residential areas on the Island, the lowest floor in the val ey, then started uphil toward the eastern bench.

The drone of snow blowers permeated the air when we reached the mansions at the top of the hil . After sixteen years of living in a trailer and moving from place to place with Grampa, I was stil getting used to living in a real house and having neighbors who cleared their driveways and sidewalks.

Once we reached the homes along

Sagebrush Drive, tucked between low-lying ridges and the gate that separated the Guardian homes from our neighbors, the absence of snow removers became glaringly noticeable. Not surprising. Snow on the footpaths and driveways were usual y cleared telekinetical y, while snow on the street was left for the city plows to keep up appearances.

“Thanks for the ride.” I got out.

“Hey,” he cal ed before I closed the car door.

I leaned in and raised my brow.

“Are you worried about Gavyn or is something else bothering you?” the ever perceptive Remy asked. Good thing I already decided to tel them about Valafar’s cal .

“Are you guys hunting tonight?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Depends on what Haziel says.

The Council and the Cardinals let him choose our missions now.”

“Then let’s talk after I’m done with my homework and you guys….” Sykes and the girls pul ed up three driveways down the street. “Are not so busy.”

Remy fol owed my gaze and grinned with anticipation.

“Yeah, see you later.” He backed out of my driveway, stil smiling.

I walked to the side door that led to the garage and the kitchen. The house was quiet, yet I felt Celeste’s energy. Bread, jel y, and peanut butter sat on the kitchen island counter along with the remnants of a sandwich. She often visited and knew her way around my house.

“Celeste?” Placing my backpack on the side kitchen counter, I fol owed her psi to my bedroom, where she was fast asleep on the recliner. The T.V.

was on. I switched it off, closed the door and went back to the kitchen for a snack and to do my homework—Pre-calc and Spanish, physics and reading
Pride and Prejudice.
Reading could wait.

I poured myself cinnamon crusted cereal in a bowl and added milk then zipped through math and Spanish, leaving the hated physics for last. If Grampa didn’t give me grief over it, I would’ve dropped the subject a long time ago.

‘You don’t run away from chal enges, my girl.

You conquer them,’ he often said.

Easy to say when you were his age and wiser than Socrates.

When the knock came, I was ready to throw the stupid physics text book across the room. I hurried to the living room to open the front door, but Celeste already beat me to it. From the scowl on her face, she didn’t like our visitor.

5. A Gypsy Trick

Kylie and Cade stood on the other side of the door, a huge space between them. Usual y, they were glued to each other’s side, which was cute because he was as tal as me while Kylie was pint-size. She stared pointedly at Celeste, waited until the girl left then pushed the coat into my arms. “Your cel is in the pocket.”

“Did it ring again?”

“Nope.” She inclined her head toward Cade.

“I told him it was broken but he wouldn’t listen. Can he take a look at it so we can go home?” I wanted to say no. It was obvious they had fought over it, but Cade wore an expectant expression. Stepping back, I waved them inside.

Cade looked around with interest, his gaze zeroing in on the circus paintings near the fireplace. He’d never been to my house before.

“What happened?” I whispered to Kylie.

She scrunched her face then glared at her boyfriend. “On the ride to and from the bookstore, al he talked about was your phone. When we got online, he Googled stuff and total y ignored me.” Cade heard her and came to join us. He was a lanky guy with the sad eyes of feigned boredom.

When he took her into his arms, I scurried to the kitchen to give them privacy. After a few moments, his deep voice mingled with hers. Cade was a guy of few words but he loved Kylie, Brain Freeze—his garage band—and playing his iPod too loud.

A laugh came from the living room, and I angled my head to catch their conversation.

“See that? I told you her family’s been in the circus for generations,” Kylie said.

I groaned. Maybe I shouldn’t have framed and hung up the paintings. They drew too much attention.

I found them along with black and white photographs of my grandparents in a storage box under Grampa’s bed when we moved from our trailer. I couldn’t resist. According to Grampa, one of the paintings was done in the early 1900s by Picasso. I stopped rol ing my eyes whenever he told me such things because they might be true. Grampa lived with the circus Gypsies in Europe during that period.

“This one is her great-grandpa, her great-great-grandpa, and her great-great-great-grandpa,” she said, repeating what I told her months ago. “And the one in the black and white pictures is her grandmother. She was a powerful Gypsy princess.”

“Cool. Does Lil do magical tricks, too?”

“Cade!”

“I mean, she must know some.” Silence fol owed. “Hmm, weird. Do you think they look like the same person? Look at the hair, the Van Helsing coat, hat, and boots.”

Observant guy. In al the paintings, Grampa wore his favorite hunting clothes, a real y bad idea when you age slowly.

“It must be some sort of circus uniform. Lil’s Grampa wears one just like it too.”

That’s it. The pictures are coming down as soon as they leave.

“Do you guys want something to drink?” I cal ed, hoping to pul them away from the paintings before they realized that one of the two women standing beside Grampa, or fake great-grandfather Falcon, resembled our counselor Hsia.

“Nah, already had something,” Kylie said as they joined me in the kitchen. I removed the cel phone and the battery pack from my coat pocket and placed them on the dining room table. Cade gave placed them on the dining room table. Cade gave me a thumbs-up sign, pul ed out a chair, and sat.

I hovered, praying the phone wouldn’t ring or start acting weird. Kylie touched my arm and indicated the counter where my homework sat. I hesitated, not wanting to leave her guy with my crazy cel phone. She grabbed my wrist and pul ed.

“What’s up?” she asked.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious Celeste’s been crying. And she looked like hel when she came to the cafeteria earlier.”

Guardian business was not meant for humans, but we had a policy about staying as close to the truth as possible. I shrugged. “She’s worried about her brother.”

“What’s wrong with Bran?”

“No, no, the other one.” I glanced over at Cade. He prodded the smashed cel phone as though it was a snake about to bite him.

“I’ve never real y met him. What’s his name?” I glanced at Kylie and scowled. “What?”

“Bran’s

brother,

what’s

his

name?”

Annoyance settled on her face.

“Gavyn.” My attention shifted again. Cade snapped the battery in place then pressed the power button. I angled my head to catch the tel tale sound my cel phone made when turned on.

“How come I never met him? Bran and Celeste are here a lot….”

The phone didn’t turn on. Maybe Cade would lose interest and they’d leave. I wanted to search the house for my presents. Not that I cared about what Valafar sent, but I needed his phone number. Maybe he would tel me what the demoness meant by Bran would join them once they got the List. I also needed to ask him to stop using my friend as a medium.

Kylie moved around the counter and blocked my line of vision. Then she leaned down to glare at me. “Does he?”

“Does he what?”

“You haven’t been listening to anything I said.

You’re just like Cade, obsessed with that stupid phone.”

Leaning away from her, I frowned. “I’m not.”

“Are too.”

She was real y angry. Kylie was about five-foot-four, but when pissed, she was a force of nature.

Cade needed to intervene again.

I tried to signal him, but she blocked me a second time. Her elbow hit the white plastic bowl I was using and sent it flying off the counter. Without thinking, I waved my hand just like I always did when I was alone.
Stop.

The bowl and the sloshed milk froze in mid-air.

Kylie jumped back. “How—”

The ripple effect hit her, caught her with her finger pointing at the bowl, eyes wide. On the other side of the room, Cade looked up then went stil , his mouth opened as if to say something.

For a moment, I couldn’t move, just stared at them with horror. Crap, I couldn’t believe I did that in their presence.
Think, Lil. Think fast.
I jumped up and chewed on my lower lip. I knew this day would come, the day I’d slip up in front of my human friends and use my powers. The problem was I had no idea how to deal with it. I closed my eyes and groaned.

Then a thought occurred to me. “Celeste?” I yel ed.

“What?”

Phew, she was unaffected. I’d hate to escort Cade and Kylie to the door only to see a frozen Celeste. “Never mind.”

I got up and moved around Kylie, grabbed the bowl, and placed it on the table. A gasp came from behind me. Celeste stood in the doorway separating the living room from the dining room/kitchen area, her gaze on the blob of milk stil dangling in the air.

“What happened?”

“She knocked over the bowl and I reacted without thinking. This is my worst nightmare.” I pul ed out sheets of paper towel, wrapped it around the milk then threw the wet paper in the garbage can.

“I’ve wondered what I’d do if this ever happened.

Now that it has, my mind is blank.”

Celeste walked to where Cade sat and studied his face. She fingered his glam-rock teased hair, touched his cheek, the stud on his ear.

“Tel them the truth,” she said in her usual blunt manner. “You’d get to know if they’re cool with what you are or not.”

“Nah-uh. We have rules, and I swore to avoid breaking them.” Occasional mind control not included.

“You’re who you are, Lil. You see what needs

“You’re who you are, Lil. You see what needs to get done and you do it, which is why my brother is crazy about you. Even Gavyn respects your style.” I laughed at her attempt to manipulate me.

Gavyn couldn’t stand me. “Nice try. And stop touching Cade. Okay?”

A sheepish expression touched her delicate features. “Humans fascinate me. They are complex, so unpredictable. We are simpler creatures. We are either good or bad. Guardians or Demons.” She glanced at me as though to check my reaction.

“Bran is different, and so are you,” I defended quickly.

“Am I?”

“Whether you’re a demon or a Guardian depends on which side you support in this crazy war, not where you were born, how you were raised, or—”

“What you did last month, last week, yesterday, or a second ago.” She rol ed her eyes.

“We are al Nephilim.”

“Ah, you’ve been talking to Grampa.” I smiled.

She shrugged and moved away from Cade to where I stood next to Kylie. “Think about this for a sec, Lil. An opportunity has presented itself. Why would you want to blow it? Going by their unpredictable nature, these two might surprise you. I often wonder about my new friends too, you know.

Wil they freak out when I shift in their presence or wil they be okay with it?”

I frowned. “Shift?”

“To a smoke form.”

The encounter with the Lazarus demon earlier flashed in my head and I winced. “You don’t have that ability, Celeste.”

“We don’t know that. Our mother was a Prime. Primes are equivalent to Cardinals, very powerful. What if I inherited her Lazarus genes?” She touched the choker around Kylie’s neck, studied the rings on her nose before glancing at me. When she spoke again, her voice was low. “They say the smoke form is addictive. It gives you the freedom to do as you please, go wherever you want to go and see things without being seen, different from teleporting. Right and wrong cease to exist. What if I changed and did something to my friends?” Celeste had never indicated she was worried about her abilities. She adjusted fast to life among humans. From her lingo to the way she dressed, she could pass for a human. Wel , except for her morbid fascination with people.

I grabbed her wrist and stopped her from pul ing off Kylie’s nose ring. “Demons don’t possess people without their consent. Now can you leave before the freeze wears off?”

She rol ed her eyes. “So do you think we could see how they react to who we are? I wil help.” She was doing it again, trying to make me do things her way. I swore I’d never knowingly use my powers on my friends. There was another way. “I can’t, but I have a plan.”

“What? Make them forget what they saw?

You’l always wonder.”

Not if my plan worked. “You need to go back to the bedroom now.”

“Why?”

I glared at her.

She wrinkled her nose. “Fine. And while you’re at it,
suggest
to Kylie to stop with the dark clothes and make-up.”

“She’s Goth.”

“She’s Nosferatu bait,” she replied. I ignored her, picked up the white plastic bowl and held it where it had frozen before. “She’s lucky there are none here in the val ey,” Celeste continued. “I mean, Cardinal Moira doesn’t count because, you know, she’s half Neteru. From what Gavyn tel s me, Nosferatus own clubs frequented by people like Kylie in big cities. They drink their blood, heal the punctured wounds and make them forget, like you’re about to do.”