Darkness Divides (Sensor #3) (36 page)

“There’s no humanity in him to bring out,” I argued.

“That remains to be seen.” Remiel pulled out a scroll. “This is the list of rules which you must go by while dealing with him. To not follow those rules could result in punishment for whichever of you breaks them.”

He walked up and handed the scroll to me. Lucas was almost shaking with anger at this point. I wasn’t sure how he was holding himself back except that attacking the archangel would only cause more problems. He must have considered that.

I took the scroll and began to unwind it. The damn thing kept going until it hit the forest floor. “That’s, uh, a lot of rules.”

The handwriting was stylized, but it was in modern English so I could read it. “Rule number three…under no circumstances will the guardian be allowed or asked to torture anyone.”

I could live with that one. There was another about him not killing any humans regardless of circumstances. I couldn’t argue with that one either. The few others I glanced at were fairly reasonable so I stopped reading and rerolled the thing. It would take too much time to get through them all now and it was too late to change anything anyway. At the very top it had said the terms were non-negotiable—in big, bold letters.

Lucas took the scroll from me and started looking it over for himself. His eyes scanned through the contents quickly. He was a much faster reader than me. After hitting the bottom he looked up.

“There’s nothing in here that says I can’t harm him,” he stated.

Remiel gave a light shrug. “Even we know we can only expect so much. I’ll leave you three to work things out. There is much to be done with Purgatory still in chaos.”

He took a step away from Kerbasi, but paused. “Oh, and Lucas. Don’t think you’re out of your long-standing contract with us. We are looking at renegotiating the terms, but it will be some time before I can bring them to you. Consider this a break from your previous duties.”

It looked like there’d be no more guarding sensors for Lucas, though I worried what the alternative would be. Remiel left in another brilliant flash of light without giving us a chance to ask. It must have been some archangel trait to leave before you were finished with them.

Lucas wasted no time going after Kerbasi. His fist went flying out and smashed into the guardian’s nose. I had to give the man credit. He didn’t just stand there and take it, but fought back. The next thing I knew both of them were rolling around on the ground battling it out.

“Hey, honey? Can you please try not to tear up his robe? We don’t have any other clothes for our new pet guardian to wear yet and I don’t want to look at him running around naked.” I was trying to see the bright side of this. Lucas now had his own personal punching bag to get out all that pent-up aggression.

“I’ll consider it,” Lucas replied before tackling Kerbasi again.

Charlie showed up about ten minutes later and stood with me.

“I’ll bet you ten dollars it ends in a stalemate,” he said.

“No way,” I replied. “I’m not taking that bet.”

For one, I was supposed to be on Lucas’ side no matter what. For two, both men were wearing down fast. They were covered in blood and I was fairly certain they had a few bones broken between them—if the loud cracks I’d occasionally heard were any indication.

I suspected Lucas might have won easily under better circumstances, but he was still weakened by a year of torture and deprivation. Plus Kerbasi was older and stronger. The thing the guardian had working against him was a complete lack of fighting experience. It was clear by his unpracticed moves and lack of good reflexes.

“Alright, that’s enough.” I hauled Lucas off of Kerbasi and kept going until we were a good ten feet apart from him. “We need you to be recovering for the fight with Zoe. You’ll have plenty of time to beat the guardian up some more later.”

One of the other rules on the list had said I couldn’t be released from my binding with Kerbasi until it was deemed he had shown sufficient humanity. That could take the rest of my immortal life to accomplish—if I was lucky. Lucas would certainly have time to work out his anger with the man with that much time to do it.

“Did you know about this?” I asked Charlie after I was assured both men were done battling it out for now.

“They didn’t consult me, but Remiel did stop by to apprise me of the situation a few minutes ago.” He clucked his tongue. “It will take a long time for your nephilim to come to terms with this.”

I looked at Lucas, who had stood up and was now brushing himself off. His gaze met mine. I almost drew back at the fury I saw in his eyes.

“This is why I told you it was best to have left me alone.” Then he flashed away, going somewhere beyond my sensory range.

Chapter Forty

I aimed the sword high and swung it at Kariann. She blocked—just as I’d expected she would—but didn’t see my foot sweeping out for her knee until too late. She landed on her ass with a grunt. I’d been holding back on my strength and speed, letting her think I wasn’t that much stronger as an immortal. After getting a few good strikes in on me, she’d believed it.

“I can see Zoe’s hospitality didn’t do you any favors,” I said, cocking a hip.

Kariann shot me a dirty look before getting up and dusting herself off.

“Sneaky, Mel. Real sneaky.” He face broke out in a grin. “Loved it.”

Nikolas, who was standing at the edge of Charlie’s well-lit yard, clapped his hands. “We’ll make a sword fighter out of you yet.”

Though they’d been making me practice for almost two years now, I’d always resented it. I was a guns and explosives kind of girl. The problem with that was it didn’t guarantee death the way a blade through the neck did. Earthborn immortals—other than nephilim—weren’t quite immortal. They could die if they lost their head, making a sword a better choice for taking them down. Plus, when you were close to human populations they made less noise. It was one thing to blow things up in Purgatory, but quite another to do it around Fairbanks.

Kariann got back into a fighting stance. “Where is Lucas? I haven’t seen him around for a couple of days.”

I blocked her thrust.

“He’s got some stuff to do.” Such as be angry with me, but I wasn’t telling her that. He hadn’t returned since the confrontation with Kerbasi and Fallon had disappeared with him. I had no idea where the two of them had gone.

She pushed forward with a series of strikes that were much faster and harder than she’d ever used on me before. I had to tap dance around to keep the blade from hitting me. If not for training on the side with Micah, she might have gotten me. He hadn’t worked with me a lot, but enough that I had some practice using my full capabilities. With each test of my skills, though, she was making it harder to dodge her strikes. Eventually, her blade sliced my arm.

Kariann lowered her sword. “You really were holding back on me all this time, but now we’ve got to work on using your new strength to the best advantage. As an immortal you can allow the occasional wound if it opens up the chance to take down your opponent.”

Easy for her to say when she wasn’t the one bleeding. She’d cut me deep enough it’d take a minute for it to stop. I clutched my arm in a vain attempt to help it along.

“In other words,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her, “you appreciate that you can injure me now and not feel as bad about it.”

She shrugged. “Well, there’s that too.”

Kerbasi came wandering out of the garage. He blended well with the dark shadows until he stepped into the area where the porch lights lit up the yard. Charlie had set him up with a room in the attic and he’d been hiding out there for the last two days since he arrived. I’d told him to stay out of sight and gave him some books to read. Mostly romance novels I’d borrowed from a female werewolf staying at the house.

According to the rules, he had to obey me if I gave him an order that related to building up his humanity. My senses had been picking up his annoyance every time I got close to him. It appeared it would take time for romance stories to grow on him.

“The little sensor is trying to become a warrior like her mate,” he observed. No one could see or hear him but me. He’d rendered himself invisible and muted his voice so only I could hear it.

I ignored the guardian and went back to sparring with Kariann. We moved all over the yard thrusting and parrying back and forth. More and more of the sups staying in and near Charlie’s house came out to watch. I tried not to let the growing audience bother me.

Kerbasi stepped closer so that I couldn’t miss him out of the corner of my eye.

“Keep it up and you’ll be just like him,” the guardian taunted. “Cold, hard, and ruthless. It might take a few years, or even a few decades, but eventually you’ll become the same soulless killing machine that he is—completely incapable of remorse.”

I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes on Kariann, but my temper was rising. It came out in the strength of my next sword thrust. With a loud cry, I crashed my blade into hers hard enough to send her sword flying.

“Damn, girl. What’s got you so worked up?” she asked, eyes rounded in shock.

I backed away and waited for her to get her blade back.

“Nothing. Sorry.” I shook my head.

“You can lie to her, but you can’t lie to yourself,” Kerbasi continued. “I have no idea why those angels think you can teach me about humanity. You’re barely hanging onto your own.”

I took a deep breath.

They were just words and meant nothing. He wanted me to lose it just to prove his point. It didn’t help that visual images of him torturing Lucas ran through my head. Each one worse than the last. He was right about one thing—the angels had picked the wrong woman to reform him.

Kariann returned with her sword. “How about we go back to the basics and see if we can’t refine your moves?”

I nodded and followed her lead as we mirrored each other. It was better this way. I had to force myself to be calm and focus on moving the sword in perfect form. If I was off by just a few inches, I’d slice into Kariann. She’d developed this exercise not just to perfect my strikes, but to build trust. It looked incredible if you were just watching because it was almost like a dance as we moved around each other.

“Lucas thinks he loves you,” Kerbasi said, close to my ear. He’d moved up behind me. “It’s nothing more than a phase he’ll get over once he finally sees you for the weak and pathetic woman you really are. You’re a liability to him and nothing more. Trust me, I used his weakness against him every day for the past year. He’ll continue to remember the way he suffered because of you every time he sees us together.”

I didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to bring up all the things I’d been thinking in the back of my mind for the last couple of days. Through my dreams, I’d seen exactly how Kerbasi had taunted Lucas, talking about how his love for me made him weak. The guardian had even gone so far as to say that if Lucas just swore to give me up the torture would stop.

Whatever self-control I had left fell away. Spinning on my feet, I swung the sword at Kerbasi. He leapt back in time, but I kept going for him.

“Melena, what are you doing?” Kariann called.

I leaped forward and thrust at the guardian again. He didn’t dodge quite fast enough this time and the blade grazed his stomach. The invisibility spell he’d been using faded away, allowing everyone to see him. I didn’t care in that moment.

“Lucas is more of a man than you will ever be!” I shouted.

Then I went after him again, slashing fast and hard until he had cuts all over him. They were healing fast, but the tears in his clothes and leftover blood revealed how many times I’d gotten him.

“See?” He swept his hands out. “You have no more ability to control your temper than he does.”

I stopped and let the point of the sword drop. He could keep his taunts going all day, but I didn’t have to respond to them. The guardian was bitter that he’d been put into this situation and this was his way of dealing with it. I had to be the stronger person and let my animosity go. It was the first step to showing him what humanity was all about.

I swept my gaze across the yard to see all the shocked faces around us. It was obvious no one was quite certain what to do about the strange-looking man who’d appeared out of nowhere—especially after he spread his dark gray wings out to their full glory. I recognized it for the scare tactic it was, but not everyone else did.

A few people ran straight for the woods. It appeared they preferred to take their chances with the nocturnal wildlife.

“Melena.” Nik rushed up to me. “Who is this?”

I gave him a wan smile. “The consequences of me breaking Lucas out of the angel prison. Consider him on the verge of being among the fallen and it’s my job to reform him and give him humanity.”

“It appears you’re doing a smashing job of it so far,” Nik observed. “Can he attack us?”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “He can defend himself if someone attacks him, but he can’t strike first. It’s in a long list of rules that came with him.”

“That’s…interesting. What’s to keep him from taking off?”

I raised the sleeve of my shirt. Ever since I’d put the silver cuff on, I’d been wearing longer sleeves to cover it.

“This,” I said. “He’s got the one that matches it so he can’t get go past my sensory range. I’m literally stuck with him until he shows sufficient signs of humanity.”

Kariann joined us. “That’s the real reason Lucas is gone, isn’t it? He must not be happy about this.”

It didn’t take her long to put the pieces together.

“No, he isn’t,” I said. My chest tightened in frustration. “It was this or both of us go to prison.”

She patted my back. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re screwed.”

“Thanks. That was very helpful.” I gave her a sour look.

Kariann sauntered up to Kerbasi and ran a finger down his face. “Maybe I can help show him some humanity. He’s not so bad to look at if you get past the weird eyes and sharp nose.”