Refracted (The Celadon Circle Book 2) (24 page)

Jordan watched Ivy’s lips move up and down, the words lost in a rush of blood that filled her head. She was standing in the middle of a tornado. There was no wind, but Jordan’s body pitched to the side. The angels’ strong hands kept her upright – kept her a witness to her worst nightmare.

Ivy tugged, gaining a precious few inches, but it wasn’t enough. The sword fell. Jordan’s eyes followed its arc, down…down…

Mazie turned as adrenalin kicked in and she saw her impending death looming above her. With a sibilate of misplaced air, the blade tore through the fragile skin at the base of her neck, ripping through tendons, slicing muscle, and sinking into her collar bone.

The room fell silent. Even the birds and insects outside went still. Jordan couldn’t breathe. Her lungs moved in and out but brought no relief. Through a white haze, she watched Mazie fall, the hideous sword jutting out at an impossible angle. Blood surged from the wound, flowing down her sister’s front and back like a parted stream. Veins running underneath her delicate skin turned a blue-black color like lines on a road map, directions to the grave.

Ivy’s scream was too loud, too high. It shredded the haze – that almost-comfortable cloak of Novocain Jordan had managed to wrap herself in since the blade began its decent.

“Mazie!”

Slipping in blood, Ivy shuffled to where their sister lay. Jordan watched with an odd sort of detachment as Ivy fell to her knees and the red liquid that once carried a young girl’s life sloshed over hands.

“Help her!” Ivy’s face was fierce as she beseeched the angels. “Help her, goddammit!”

The swordless Aeon moved forward. “We can’t. Our power will not work on a Cambion. We can only heal angels and humans.”

“That’s not true; Gabriel used to heal Jordan when she went on hunts. She’s part demon, too!”

Ivy waited on her to confirm this but Jordan couldn’t speak, couldn’t remind her sister that she was more than a Cambion. She could only watch and listen for the blood that oozed from Mazie’s body to the floor, like water dripping from the eaves at the farmhouse when it rained.

Pat, pat, pat
.

It was only the rain dripping off the roof.

The red rain.

Oh, God
.

The world came rushing back as Jordan’s consciousness broke the surface. The first to hit her was a tangy, coppery smell. It saturated her nose and coated the back of her throat. She leaned over and gagged. Everything came up in a steaming rush. Tears sprang to her eyes, sweat ran down her back and her knees buckled.

To her surprise, the angel holding her arm let go. Heaving, crawling, Jordan made her way through puke and blood to Ivy’s side. Mazie’s beautiful brown eyes were open but the life that made them shine had disappeared.

Her sister was gone.

Jordan reached over and gently closed them, then kissed Mazie’s cheek. To no one in particular, she said, “I could have saved her. I could have saved her life and I…I froze. I shut down.” Swallowing hard, she gathered one small, fragile hand between her own. As the puddle of blood she sat in began to congeal, Jordan rubbed the tiny fingers, willing them to grow warm again – wishing she could somehow give her life to the girl who never had a chance to live.

“There was nothing you could have done,” one Aeon said, kneeling beside her. “The wound was too great. The poison infused in our weapons would have assured death, even if she had not bled out.”

He spoke like a professor giving a lecture, clinical and detached. There was no sympathy, just the facts. Jordan’s power, which had been strangely subdued until that moment, rose to have a look around. She welcomed the distraction it lent, especially when she saw Gina in the corner.

Xander had prevented her escape. Gina’s eyes, glassy and dilated, never wavered from his. Jordan guessed he was invoking his power of persuasion.

Jordan wanted to make Gina suffer for what she’d done, but her grief over losing Mazie was too much. She couldn’t think around it. Her death, and the few months that Jordan got to be a part of her life, filled her head and heart.

Someone grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. They stuck to the floor when she lifted them to catch her balance.

“It’s time to go,” the Aeon said.

Before she could absorb his words, the other angel snatched his blade from Mazie’s body, jerking it upward. Jordan gasped as her baby sister dangled, suspended by the weapon. Her head lolled back and her neck popped loudly. The wound made a sucking noise as the sword slipped free. She fell like a ragdoll back to the floor.

Ivy’s strangled sobs as her hands fluttered helplessly over Mazie, the lack of compassion from the Aeons, and her sister treated like a broken toy caused Jordan to lose the tiny grip she had on her sanity. It snapped like an overstretched rubber band.

Pulling her arm from the angel’s grasp, Jordan turned to face them. Her eyes pulsated with energy making both Aeons stop and stare. She placed her hands on their chests, forcing power through them. Electric sparks emanated from her palms, hurling the angels across the room and into a wall. They crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

To Ivy, she said, “Go to the car, gather our weapons, and meet us back at the cabin.” Jordan’s fingers curled around the pendant Orias gave her. “This piece of shit doesn’t work and we need to get back inside the safety of the wards.”

Ivy nodded and got to her feet. With a small pop, she disappeared.

Jordan took a deep breath and went to Xander. Avoiding Gina, lest she rip her head off and waste the precious moments they had to escape, she asked him, “Are you okay?”

His pale face shone with the sweat of exertion but he managed a weak smile.

“I thought that was my line,” he croaked.

Stone-faced, Jordan crossed her arms, waiting.

“I’m fine; I’ve got this,” he said. “Do what you need to do.”

What she needed was to hold him – to be held. Jordan looked down at her clothes, tacky with her sister’s blood. Somehow, it seemed right that she was.

“Can you take Gina back to the cabin? I want you to help Ivy break the news to Aamon before I bring…bring Mazie home.” She cut her eyes to Gina, still motionless in her trance-like state. “Make sure she’s locked in a secure room. I’ll deal with her later.”

Xander nodded stiffly. “Please be careful, and hurry.”

And then she was alone with her sister’s body and two comatose angels.

Jordan looked around the room, wondering who lived there. Was the owner possessed by the rogue demon? Had the Aeons scared her off? She thought about searching the rest of the house but knew it was only an excuse to put off the inevitable. She didn’t care about the demon anymore or the owner of the shack. She just didn’t want to say goodbye.

Mazie’s clothes were saturated in blood. It was in her hair, on her face. Jordan hated to bring her back to the cabin in such a state but it couldn’t be helped. Even now, the angels stirred, mumbling. She no longer had the will to take them on. Her fury took a backseat to overwhelming loss.

Stooping, Jordan gathered her sister in her arms. Mazie’s face was ashen, but she could remember when it was as warm as coffee. Her bloodless lips turned down at the corners. Jordan closed her eyes as the memory of her sister’s exuberant laughter filled her head. She would never feel Mazie’s arms around her neck again, never have the chance to tell her how much she meant to her. 

This was her sister and she was dead.

“You told me that you loved me,” Jordan whispered.

Finally, the tears came, burning tracks down her cheeks, leeching away something she would never recover.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jordan

The porch swing rocked to and fro. Jordan sat beside Aamon with Koda at her feet. She stared at the star-filled sky and tried to clear her mind. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to move. The snow had stopped falling but the night was cold. She no longer felt it. Whether from shock or her
Paladin
status, she wasn’t sure.

Her clothes were stiff with blood. Long dry now, the red stains had turned rusty-brown. Aamon had asked her several times if she wanted to shower. Jordan heard him, but didn’t
hear
him. After a while, he stopped asking and just sat with her, moving the swing with his legs while she drifted on thoughts she wished she could erase.

<><><>

By the time she reached the cabin, word of what happened had spread throughout the house. The front room was filled with kids who spilled out on to the porch. Jordan teleported to the yard and sank to her knees. One of the children yelled for Aamon, and then she was surrounded.

Voices called out; hands shook her, pulled at her, tried to pry Mazie away. She stood on wobbly legs and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Get back in the house, NOW!”

Electric bolts shot from her hands. She didn’t hit anyone, but the five-foot circle of snow she melted was all the encouragement the kids needed. They broke rank and hightailed it back to the porch just as Aamon, Ivy, and Xander ran out the front door.

Jordan sat with her sister. Occasionally, she heard voices. They might have been speaking to her. She didn’t know, didn’t care.

She talked to Mazie and told her how strong she was – how brave.

“Find my mother,” she whispered, pushing a curl back from the girl’s face. “She’ll take care of you.”

She pleaded with God, begging Him to save Mazie’s soul.

Make an exception for a Cambion just this once and I’ll gladly take her place in Hell when the time comes. 

The details following were blurry…

Aamon buried Mazie. Ivy had cleaned her body. They’d dressed her in her favorite X-Men shirt and used the sheets from her bed to make a shroud.

A sugar maple stood in the backyard that had the most glorious colors in the fall. Mazie called it her “Halloween tree.” That was where they laid her to rest.

<><><>

Through it all, Jordan sat in the swing. No one bothered her, not even Xander. He and Aamon had put Gina in a “special” room that connected to her father’s study and, as far as she knew, the bitch was still there. Jordan would have to deal with her, but not yet. She concentrated on the smooth movement of the swing. After a while, she laid her head against Aamon’s shoulder and fell into a deep sleep.

When Jordan woke up, she was in her bed and it was close to midnight. Someone had spread an old blanket across her comforter to keep it from getting soiled by her filthy clothes. She reeked of blood and sweat.

Still trying not to think, Jordan grabbed some clean clothes and made her way to the bathroom across the hall. She glanced at the closed door to Mazie’s room and fought back tears that threatened to choke her.

Scalding water pelted her body while Jordan scrubbed blood from her hands, watching helplessly as the only part left of her sister swirled down the drain. She ended up sitting on the shower floor, praying for the pain to stop.

After she dressed, Jordan went downstairs. She found Ivy, Xander, and Aamon at the breakfast table. Ivy stood and poured her a mug of coffee. The warm brew soothed Jordan’s throat and her stomach complained for something more substantial. She felt guilty, but ate the sandwich Aamon put in front of her, and then another.

No one spoke. They moved from the kitchen to the living room. Koda appeared and sat beside her on the couch. He placed his burly head in her lap and Jordan absently scratched behind his ears, trying not to think.

Ivy broke the silence. “Gina wants to talk to you.”

When Jordan didn’t answer she added, “She says she has important information you’ll want to know.”

“Is this information in exchange for her life?”

Jordan didn’t recognize her own voice. It was…lifeless, just like she felt inside. The others must have noticed, as well. They regarded her with narrowed eyes.

“Well? Is it?”

Ivy nodded. “I believe she wants to make a trade, yes.”

“No deal.” Jordan said.

Gently, as if she might fall to pieces at the smallest amount of pressure, Xander took her hand.

“She said it has something to do with your family.”

Jordan frowned. “My family is here in this room.”

From his favorite armchair, a ghost of a smile floated across Aamon’s face.

Ivy cleared her throat. “That’s true, but we’re not your
only
family.”

Jordan ran her fingers through Koda’s fur. She’d forced her mind to remain blank all day and now, it was hard to assemble any thoughts at all. They took shape, forming in her mind like sand sculptures that teetered and collapsed.

There was something important about Ivy’s comment.

She wanted to curl up on the couch and sleep.

Was someone talking to her?

Koda’s fur was so thick and warm.

Off to the side, Aamon whispered, “She’s still in shock.”

“I understand, Dad, but this is important. Gina would lie like a drunken whore if it meant saving her own skin, but what if she’s telling the truth? Jordan’s uncle and brothers could be in danger.”

“We don’t know that.”

To Jordan, Xander’s voice sounded far away.

“Look what losing Mazie has done. Now picture her one-hundred times worse because that’s what she’ll be reduced to if anything happens to Casen and the boys.”

Jordan felt as light as a feather. Idly, she wondered if she could float away. Just drift on currents for the rest of her life.

“Dad, we need to wake her up.”

Was she asleep?

Her fingers raked through sable fur.

Someone kneeled in front of her. In her dream, Jordan managed a lazy smile. Ivy’s face came into focus, then shimmered like heat waves on desert sand.

“Jordan, I’m sorry, but this may hurt.”

Her tongue felt too thick. “You gonna hurth me, Ibeyy?”

“Not too much. Do you trust me?”

She smiled again and touched her sister’s cheek. “Yep.”

“Your family may be in danger. You’ve gotta shake this off and come back to us.”

Ivy looked so serious. Jordan wanted to fix what bothered her. She could withstand a little pain. After all, this was just a dream.

It had all been a dream.

Your family may be in danger…

The thought took shape and Jordan held it with all her might only to have it unravel in her hands.

“Do what you need to do,” she muttered before succumbing to the dream once more.

“Move Koda,” someone said.

His warm fur was suddenly gone and Jordan groaned as her fingers reached for him. Why were they changing her dream? She was happy with the way it was.

“Not too much, Ivy,” Aamon cautioned.

Too much what?

Seconds later, a jolt of pain shot through her hand. The taste of something stannic, like tinfoil, filled her mouth, and Jordan found she couldn’t swallow. Heart racing, it felt like someone was scrubbing her skin from the inside with a wire brush.

Jordan screamed.

When she opened her eyes, she found Xander, Ivy and Aamon hovering like a couple of mother demons, and Koda licking her hand. Jordan felt awake. Wide awake – and her body ached.

“What happened? What hit me?”

She tried to sit up but the effort was too taxing. She couldn’t lift her arms.

“Am I paralyzed?”

What the hell is wrong with me?!

“Easy, Jordan, be still. I’m going to help.”

Aamon’s hands glowed with white light that pulsated from his chest to his arms. Poised an inch or so above her body, he moved them around, focusing mainly on her heart and her head. The pain and heaviness passed and she was able to sit up on her own.

Ivy handed her a glass of water. “I’m sorry, I had to do it.”

As Jordan sipped, it all came back to her – the dream that wasn’t a dream at all.

“You zapped me!”

“I didn’t have a choice! You were in La-La land, and though I wish we could have let you find your own way out, we don’t have the luxury of time right now.” She grabbed Jordan’s hand. “Shit’s going down that you need to know about.”

Gina sat like a queen on the steel-backed utilitarian chair in the center of the room. An iron cuff threaded with silver was wrapped around her ankle and connected to a short chain bolted to the floor. A metal table sat before her.

Regarding Jordan with a look probably saved for homeless beggars and ugly babies, she flipped a lock of golden hair, then demanded a cup of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.

“You can fucking starve, Hag.” Ivy shut the door behind them.

Seeing Gina triggered memories Jordan had struggled all day and night to repress: the glint of the sword, the
whooshing
sound as it fell, Mazie’s look of fear, and sitting with her sister’s lifeless body.

It all came back in a rush that squeezed the air from her lungs. Ivy and Xander had begged her to let Mazie go while Aamon’s broken cries assaulted her ears. Jordan remembered thinking that his pain was almost palpable. If she’d bothered to look up, she might have seen it riding on the freezing air like some sort of black fog.

“I can’t let her go,” she’d explained as tears fell, plopping like salted rain to her sister’s face. “That will make it real, don’t you see? She needs me to hold her. I have to hold her.” Jordan smoothed Mazie’s bloody hair and cradled her like a baby. “I have to protect her. I can’t fail again…”

But she had failed. Mazie was dead.

Her chest ached and she looked away, biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood.

“Take your time,” Xander whispered, rubbing her back.

Gina expelled a heavy sigh, as if they were delaying her from a shopping trip. Facing her again, Jordan’s power soared. Vision hazy and tinged with red, she balled her shaking hands into tight fists and crossed her arms.

“I want to see my father,” Gina stated matter-of-factly. “If you want my cooperation, I want him here to prevent any…
accidents
.” She smiled sweetly and winked.

Jordan closed her eyes and counted backward from ten. It didn’t work. Raw energy whipped around inside like a cyclone. She couldn’t come down. The force nearly knocked her off her feet and she grabbed Xander’s arm for support.

“Aamon won’t be joining us.” Ivy said, placing her hands on the table, getting in Gina’s face. “He’s done with you, finished; you’re
nothing
to him now.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gina hissed. “I’m his favorite.”

Ivy’s laugh was bitter. “Not anymore. If you wanted to stay in Dad’s good graces, you shouldn’t have killed his little girl.” Her eyes travelled around the room. “Don’t you get it, Gina? This is death row and your number is up.”

No
, Jordan thought.
She doesn’t get it, but she will.

Combing her fingers through her hair, Gina flashed perfect, bleached teeth, and looked at the door, as if waiting for rescue. She was the princess of her own twisted fairy tale, and her hero waited just around the corner. 

Jordan’s feet carried her across the tiled floor. She grabbed Gina by the shoulder and squeezed.

“You can stop waiting for Superman – he isn’t coming.”

Gina’s smile remained fixed but she winced from the pressure Jordan applied.

“This isn’t a game!” Jordan shook her, taking pleasure in the way Gina’s head flopped back and forth. “You murdered an innocent child – struck her down like some sort of annoying insect. Mazie was your sister! She did
nothing
to you.” Jordan blinked, pushing tears away. She couldn’t cry now. Still, her voice cracked, betraying her. “The pain she must have felt…oh God,
why
? Why make her suffer like that?”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t retaliate after what you did?” Gina shot back, her face contorted, ugly. “You took something important from me, something vital. Now, we’re even.”

“You took a life!”
Jordan screamed.

“So did you.”

“No, no I didn’t. Not yet.”

The chain attached to Gina’s ankle rattled as she crossed her legs and proceeded to examine her cuticles. There was no remorse, no regret for what she’d done.

Jordan had witnessed many types of monsters in her lifetime. Some killed for sustenance, others because they weren’t in their right minds, and a select few took lives simply because they were ordered to. None of them compared to Gina. She killed Mazie
because she could
. Using revenge as an excuse was just an evasion. The truth was that she took pleasure in making people suffer. She was the purest form of evil.