Fallen Angel of Mine (50 page)

Her eyes softened and a tear trickled
down her cheek. "I can't believe he's gone. I remember now how he
helped Dad. How both of them forced me to take the
White."

"Why didn't they just use a Templar
sorcerer to wipe out your memories?"

Her gaze lifted from the far-off place
it had wandered and met mine. "You're the perfect example why.
Sorcerers can blur memories, but not wipe them out. And sometimes
they come back." She took her arms from around my neck, lacing her
fingers through mine. "Daelissa's method is almost perfect. And
she's mind-wiped every Templar for each trial they've taken. Now I
know why nobody ever remembers what happens."

"What does your father plan to do since
he knows Daelissa is the Divinity?"

She shrugged. "He didn't say. I mean,
how do you deal with finding out your entire organization is
powered by a fallen angel with bad intentions?"

"I don't understand why she'd form an
organization like the Templars only to destroy it. Why keep up the
farce?"

"Before Daelissa wiped my mind, she
told me the Templars started as her own personal guard. I suspect
she also used them for a steady food source."

"Food?" Shock filled my
voice.

"She drained some kind of white energy
from me. But a smoky shadowy substance came with it and it really
freaked her out."

Nightliss hadn't mentioned her kind
were leeches and my earlier sympathy for her turned a notch back
towards distrust. How could we trust any entity so powerful? "It
looks like there won't be any more human Templars for a while,
unless for some reason, Daelissa continues to indoctrinate
them."

"Why would she?"

I shrugged. "The woman seems unstable.
Maybe she wants to go back to basics and recreate her personal
guard."

"She is bat-poo crazy," Elyssa said.
"Feeding seems to fix her insanity for a while, but she's really
unstable. You have no idea." Elyssa shuddered.

"The last thing we need is an insane
angel running amok on this planet."

"We'll be here to help," Ryland said in
a gruff voice.

"After I've nursed you to health,
Wolfykins." Stacey pecked him on the nose.

Ryland looked mortified. "Uh,
yeah."

Shelton pulled up in a van and honked
the horn. "All aboard."

"You came prepared," I said.

He sighed. "With you around, I have to
be."

Stacey helped Ryland inside. Meghan and
Adam piled in the third row seat. I looked for my father and
Kassallandra, but saw no sign of them. Bella, Curtis, and Alejandro
got in after I motioned them over. Fausta and Beck had apparently
gone with the other Templars. I looked around and saw nobody else I
was responsible for in the now-empty parking lot. And so I hopped
in the second-row seat next to Elyssa.

Bella climbed took shotgun. She looked
back at Stacey and gave her a smile. "Your heart has healed, old
friend?"

A tear brimmed in Stacey's eye as she
met the dhampyr's gaze. "Full and whole. It's good to see you
again."

"Wait, when do I get to hear how you
guys know each other?" I asked, curiosity driving away some of my
exhaustion. I couldn't imagine how the British felycan and
presumably Colombian Arcane could possibly have a
history.

Stacey grinned. "I think he's a bit
young."

Bella grinned back. "Far too young to
hear that story."

"Wait, I'm eighteen! I can legally buy
porn if I want." I looked back and forth.

"Don't worry, dear. I'll tell you soon.
For now, I'm much too tired to go into it." Bella turned back
toward the front.

I decided to be patient, but it was
damned hard. Stacey and Bella seemed like oil and water. Or maybe
Bella used to be really bad, and corrupted Stacey. The
possibilities were endless.

Curtis, situated on Elyssa's left,
leaned wearily against the window. "I can't wait to go home," he
said in a quiet voice. "I need to tell Pokito's family. Tell them
how brave he was."

"He will be missed," Bella
said.

Shelton pulled out of the parking lot
and turned right.

"Where to?" I asked.

He glanced back at me. "Hotel Shelton.
A different one since Maximus's vamps overran the last."

"And then?"

He grinned. "The future."

Elyssa squeezed my hand. I squeezed
back three times.

"What does that mean?" she
said.

I leaned into her ear and whispered, "I
love you."

"We're resorting to secret code
now?"

"In a crowded van, yes."

She smiled and returned the three
squeezes, punctuating each one with a kiss on my cheek.

The road behind had been rough.
Treacherous. Deadly. I still had a long list of things to do, but
I'd taken a huge step forward. Today Elyssa, tomorrow Ivy.
Together, we would save the world or die trying.

###

Read an excerpt from Book 4
of the Overworld Chronicles, the sequel to John Corwin's Fallen
Angel of Mine, available in 2013

I was at Jack Borathen's funeral when I
saw the young blonde girl watching me as she leaned against a
towering gravestone. I noticed the family name etched into the dark
marble and shuddered. Conroy. My mother's maiden name. The last
name of the grandparents who'd stolen my little sister, Ivy, from
us—wrenched her from our lives when I was just a kid. Mom had
blurred the memories of my sister from my mind. In fact, I'd never
seen her face in real life.

Until now.

Elyssa's hand gripped mine painfully
tight as they lowered the casket bearing her brother's remains into
the ground. Her other brother, Michael, towered in dark silence on
the other side of the pit. On the side where my sister stood, some
fifty yards behind him.

I stood frozen with indecision. A
funeral was a bad time to dash away without a word. Silent tears
streamed down Elyssa's face leaving a dark trail of eyeliner
against her alabaster skin. I looked back to the girl. Her bright
blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and she wore a blue dress
patterned with flowers. It seemed awfully out of place for the
winter. She smirked. Her blue eyes glinted. I couldn't tell if they
sparked with malice or happiness.

"May his soul rest in the forever which
awaits us all," the Templar priest intoned as he sprinkled the
casket with holy water.

I hoped desperately for the ceremony to
end so I could excuse myself. But the priest seemed determined to
drag things out as long as possible, droning on about the
afterlife, God's goodness, and the better place awaiting us
all.

I had to call BS. I'd met angels—two of
them in fact. If those two were heavenly messengers, the only thing
waiting in the afterlife was a world of hurt and God was on
vacation.

The girl rolled her eyes and stepped
behind the Conroy family headstone. I couldn't let her go. I had to
know for sure if she was really my sister, or just some kid who'd
wandered off from the funeral. I kissed Elyssa on the cheek and
whispered, "I'll be right back."

Her violet eyes widened with confusion
as I released her hand and backed away through the crowd. I tried
to look casual. And failed. Thankfully, Elyssa's parents were
sitting to her right and didn't seem to notice me slip into the
crowd right away. The second I cleared the fringe, I sped in a wide
arc around the large graveyard and toward the headstone behind
which I prayed my sister still waited.

Instead I found only a note taped to
the stone.

It fluttered in a gentle chilly breeze,
taunting me for not coming sooner. I cursed and jerked it off.
Unfolded the sheet and looked at the words scrawled on it: Look
behind you.

I spun, suddenly quite aware I might
have walked straight into a trap set by Maximus. Instead of a group
of angry vampires ready to beat me and take me to their rogue
leader, Ivy stood there, arms crossed, and a blonde eyebrow arched
imperiously.

"Justin?" she asked, her voice still
that of a teeny-bopper—cute, but with the sauciness of a fledgling
tween. Her big blue eyes and golden hair were exactly like our
mom's and the resemblance in her face almost took my breath
away.

"Ivy," I said, taking a step toward
her, arms outstretched for the brother-sister hug I'd been waiting
so long for.

She backed away, waggling a finger at
me. "Uh, uh, big bro." She stopped and crossed her arms, raking me
with a critical eye. "I'm disappointed."

My mouth dropped open and I froze in my
tracks. "Not exactly the greeting I was expecting."

"I expected you to look more dangerous.
Maybe have a scar or an evil scowl on your face."

I wrinkled my nose. "Why in the world
would I look evil?"

She snorted and gave me a yeah right!
look. "Because you are evil."

I staggered back a step, my gut feeling
like she'd just landed a physical blow with a sledgehammer.
"But—but why?" I sputtered.

"You can act innocent if you want,
Justin Slade, but I know all about you. Grandma and Grandpa told me
how your dad tricked Momma into marrying him and how you got all
the demonic genes while I inherited Momma's. Basically, I'm pure
and you're gross."

"He's your dad too," I said, anger
overcoming my shock. "And our grandparents stole you from Mom and
Dad when you were an infant. Did they tell you that?"

She stuck out her lower lip and nodded.
"It was to protect me."

"Yeah, then why did Mom stay with Dad
all those years, huh? Why not go with them right then?"

"Because she wasn't sure how you'd turn
out. Once she figured out you were a spawn, she left."

I opened my mouth to throw a retort in
her face, but what if her words were true? What if Mom had left me
when she did because she saw I was developing incubus powers?
Becoming just like Dad? Even if the Conroys had filled Ivy's head
with nothing but lies, I had no proof to fight them with. A million
things to say seemed to fly into my head all at once, but none of
them would do a damned thing to keep Ivy from hating me.

Except…why was she here?

Despite the lies and whatever twisted
upbringing her—our—grandparents had given her, she'd come here,
apparently on her own, to see me face-to-face. Maybe deep down she
doubted what they'd told her. Maybe she wanted to decide the truth
for herself.

"You can't believe everything they told
you if you came here to see me," I said after a few seconds of
silence stretched between us. "In fact, I'll bet you're full of
doubt."

She giggled and shook her head. "No I'm
not, silly."

"Then why—"

"I came here to get rid of you so I can
save the world. Otherwise, you'll have a good chance at wrecking
everything we've worked so hard on."

I almost laughed at the idea of her
doing anything to harm me and almost cried because she seemed so
sure it was the right thing to do. "Get rid of me?" I shook my
head. "Wouldn't that be the evil thing to do?"

"Not if it's for the right
reason."

I turned away from her, shaking my
head. "I can't believe this. I cannot believe my long-lost sister
wants to kill me."

She giggled again and dragged the toe
of her black tennis shoe in the dirt. "I didn't say kill you. I
said I'd get rid of you. There's a difference."

"And you're not even going to hug me
first? Geez, I realize we didn't get a chance to know each other,
but I was hoping for a happier reunion than this."

She grimaced. "Eww. As if I'd touch
demon spawn."

"We're related, Ivy. If you know
anything about the birds and the bees—"

She waved her hands frantically. "Don't
make me think about it! Gross."

I leaned against the tombstone and
folded my arms. "Look, before you go trying to kill me or get rid
of me, why don't you take some time to get to know me? We could go
climb trees together and drink Kool-Aid. I could cut the hair off
your Barbie dolls and you could go tell Mom and Dad on me. You
know, like real brothers and sisters do." Having never known her, I
really didn't have a clue what growing up with a sibling would be
like, but I did have friends with sisters and remembered some of
those Barbie doll incidents pretty clearly. Especially the one we'd
dismembered to see if it worked as a voodoo doll. It
hadn't.

"I figured you'd try this emotional
stuff on me." She blew out a breath. "I mean, if I didn't know you
were pure evil, I'd love to have a brother. There are some really
mean kids at the school I go to and I would love to teach them a
lesson if I could get away with it."

"Well hey, just point me in their
direction and I'll beat them up." I smiled at the thought of coming
to my sister's aid, especially if someone was bullying her. I'd
been through hell with jackasses who thought nothing of pushing
around others simply because they could.