Shadows in the Silence (16 page)

He took hold of my thighs and stood, kissing me as he carried me upstairs.

A GROUP MEMORIAL SERVICE WOULD BE HELD AT the high school for all of the teens killed at Josie’s house. I made it a goal to scout leads on possible locations of the Pentalpha before the service, and we would act the day after. I knew I had a special connection with the relic since I was the one who made it and I’d likely be able to sense its energy. That would be very helpful once the search began.

I didn’t get the chance to hang out with Kate before the memorial service and/or tell her about what had happened between Will and me. Every time I thought about it, I found myself biting my lip and feeling those unbidden butterflies. I knew that conversation would warrant a sleepover and long girl talk. Kate and I had so much to say to each other before I left.

The candlelight memorial brought a somber mood to
the recently graduated teens and their families. My smiles from the past couple of days couldn’t have shielded my heart from the sadness that overwhelmed me when I returned to my high school for the first time since commencement. I sat with Kate, Chris, Rachel, and Evan among the rest of my former classmates in the football field beneath the endless night sky, and Landon’s absence was heartbreakingly noticeable. In my hands, I held one of the roses he had given me for my seventeenth birthday that my mom had dried for me. She had always loved drying flowers. In a way, this rose was for both of them. There were several faces I looked for but did not see, and the missingness that was felt in all of us was a low, heavy, suffocating cloud. There was no way to explain how strange it was for everyone to be so sad when the last time we were here and all together, we had felt nothing but pure joy and excitement.

Our principal closed the service by giving a speech that brought us all to tears. Kate squeezed my hand as we got up from our seats and filed out of the rows of chairs to line up and pay our respects. An altar covered in framed photographs of the dead, flowers, and candles stood on the platform the speakers had presented from, and everyone in line passed by in a gloomy, teary procession. People left small gifts that had meaning between them and those that had been lost: friendship bracelets, a football, a ribbon that said “Daddy’s Little Girl,” and more photographs of the deceased and their friends and family. I decided then that I
wanted to write letters to each of the families, to express my condolences for their losses. I left Landon’s rose in front of his picture and Kate took my hand and laid her cheek on my shoulder as we stopped to gaze at his picture. The three of us had been so close for nearly our entire lives, and it truly felt as if there was a hole in me now. I knew Kate had to feel the same. Losing Landon gave me so much sorrow, but I also felt an intense anger at the demonic who had done this to us. To all of us.

Kate and I went to meet up with Will, Marcus, and Ava afterward, who had accompanied us and kept a lookout. We rounded the bleachers where the students’ families sat, and a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the beams supporting the stands. I gaped in surprise when I recognized the red and puffy faces of Harper Knight, Josie Newport, and a couple of their friends. Harper released my arm roughly, glaring at me something vicious.

“What?” I asked, but I was more concerned with Josie’s appearance. She looked absolutely anguished, with fresh tears smeared across her cheeks and her usually perfect makeup and hair a total mess. “Are you okay?”

“We saw you,” Harper snarled, her face twisted in anger. “You know what really happened, don’t you?”

I stared, speechless. “I—”

Kate stepped between us, turning on her pit bull charm. “Hey. Back off. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, I think you do!” Harper shoved Kate and Kate
would have swung her fist if I hadn’t caught it.

“Stop it!” Josie cried, and grabbed Harper’s shoulder. “Let’s just go.”

Harper ignored her. “Don’t lie to me, Ellie. We saw you with those monsters. We saw you with freaking
swords
. I’m not blind and I’m not the only one who saw! What did you do, you psycho? Did you kill those kids?”

I almost choked on the air in my lungs. “Oh my God! I lost one of my best friends too!”

“How dare you?” Kate demanded and shoved Harper in the chest, knocking her back. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

I started to walk away, feeling the tears stinging my eyes and nausea creeping up my throat. I already felt guilty enough for Landon’s death and the deaths of all the other people, but the last thing I could handle was being directly accused of killing them.

“We saw you, Ellie!” Harper yelled at my back. “You can’t deny it!”

I spun around and stomped right into her face. “You want to know what I was doing? I was trying to
save
you, bitch. You’d all be
dead
if I hadn’t been there! All of you!”

Kate took my arm. “Ell, don’t.”

I knew she was afraid of my blowing my cover, but I’d already lost my temper. “I don’t care anymore! Harper, you’re right. I do know what happened. Those monsters were real and I’m the only one who can kill them. That’s what those
swords are for. I did everything I could that night. I fought. All I
ever
do is fight. And fighting
you
is not worth my time, so get out of my face.”

She gaped back at me, Josie whimpering beside her, their other friends silent. I spun and walked away as quickly as I could, Kate on my heels. Will appeared out of nowhere, pulling me into his arms to comfort me. Marcus stood behind him, watching the girls we’d just left with disgust, and Ava joined him, her own expression hard and angry.

Will lifted my chin to meet his gaze. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

I shrugged, exhausted and heartsick. “Yeah. Just someone giving me crap.”

He looked up suddenly and I was surprised to see Josie walking toward me, wiping her tears away with the thin sleeve of her shirt. Harper and the others were nowhere in sight.

“Ellie, I’m so sorry,” Josie sniffled. “I know I shouldn’t make excuses for her, but she’s angry and hurt. one of the kids who was killed was her new boyfriend. That doesn’t make it okay for her to lash out at you, though.”

I gave her a tiny, grateful smile. “I understand what it’s like to want someone to blame.”

Her eyes flickered to the ground and past my head, and she seemed hesitant. “Is what you said true? About those things that were in my house, killing people? I saw you with the swords too.” She looked at Will. “And you were there too.
Do you really fight them?”

“You told her?” Will asked me, surprised.

“Yes,” I confessed. “They’re what killed my parents, Mr. Meyer, and those people at your party. I’m sorry I couldn’t save everyone. It’s impossible for me to, but I still try so hard.”

“Do you need any help?” she asked with genuine sweetness.

“I’ve got help,” I said. “Thank you. I’m about to leave, Josie. Tomorrow, actually. I have to find something very important that can help me stop something even worse than the monsters who killed our friends. If I don’t come back…if I never see you again…well, thank you for being kind, Josie. You’re a good person and you’ve always been nice to me.”

She frowned. “You sound so sad.”

I smiled at her and fought back a tear. “I’ve got to go. Bye, Josie.”

To my shock, she yanked me into a hug. “Bye, Ellie. Be safe.”

I let my shoulders relax after a moment. “You too.”

When we parted, I was sad to leave Josie. She really was a nice girl and I’d miss her. If I survived this war, I would visit her. I would do a lot of things. I would go antiquing with Nana again like we used to. Kate and I would waste a million hours wandering around the mall. Maybe I’d even join a rock band. If I survived this war, then I would really live.
I’d savor every moment in the sunshine, catch as many snowflakes on my tongue as I could, and I’d love as fiercely as my heart would allow. I wouldn’t let the demonic take anything else from me. I wouldn’t let anyone take from me what made me…me.

Will and I sat in the living room at the house, hard at work with Ava, Cadan, and Marcus, going through known relic guardians and choosing which were the most promising to check out. We could pick a few locations out of a hundred, but in the end, the Pentalpha might not be in any of them. our odds of success didn’t seem so great.

“What about this one?” I asked, pulling the photo of a girl—no, an angelic reaper—out from the pile.

Ava shook her head. “She protects a demonic relic, a blade Lilith used to murder babies in their cribs.”

I exhaled in frustration. “You know all of these relic guardians and what they’re guarding, but none of them can help us.”

“Most of them I know,” she agreed. “Not these three.”

She pushed three file sheets toward Will and me, and we peered over the table to take a look. The first document had a small photograph of a male reaper paper-clipped to a sheet of his known physical traits, apparently for identification purposes, and the name of a town was circled in red ink in the top right corner: Apache Junction, Arizona. The second file listed the guardian’s name as “Unknown” and featured
a map of a region in Brazil with a small village near Manaos highlighted. The last file had only a question mark scribbled in red above a map of Belgium.

“What do you have?” Cadan asked.

“This is all the information there is on these guardians and their relics,” Ava explained. “I have the most comprehensive collection of information on relic guardians and these three are a mystery to me. It must be that secrecy is their top priority. They want to remain unknown because whatever they are protecting is of the greatest power. These are the three relics we need to track down.”

“Excellent,” Will said. “Ellie and I will track down the Arizona guardian. Marcus and Ava will go to Brazil.”

“I can check out Belgium,” Cadan offered.

I shook my head. “You aren’t going alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“You’re working with us now,” I said. “We work in teams. You’re not going alone.”

He shrugged, seeming disappointed but accepting of my terms. “What’s my job, then?”

“Guard Nathaniel’s copy of the grimoire,” I said. “I trust you to keep it safe. Merodach wanted to keep its power from us and Sammael may send more thugs to stop us. We still need this book to summon Azrael and hopefully perform my ascension, but I need the Pentalpha first.”

“Let’s get ready to ship out, then,” Marcus said excitedly. No one got more pumped about a mission than him.

“I’ll get us on a flight into Phoenix tonight,” Will said to me.

“Sounds good,” I replied.

He got up and headed to the study to use the computer. Ava stood and bade us good-bye and good luck. Marcus gave me a hug as I walked him out the front door.

“I’d better let Kate know what’s going on before I go,” he said. “She’ll be furious if I leave without a good-bye.”

I laughed. “Yeah, she would beat you to a pulp for sure.”

“See you soon,” Marcus said, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Go kick some ass, okay?”

“You too.”

I closed the door behind him and turned back to find that only Cadan remained in the room. He stood and settled his hands on my shoulders.

“You’ll be okay without me?” he asked, his gaze warm and searching my own.

“Of course. Will
you
be okay without
me
?”

He grinned. “I might not.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I don’t expect a fight. We’re just going to check out this relic and if it’s the Pentalpha, then we’ll bring it home. Don’t worry about me.”

“I will anyway.”

“Just don’t give me a reason to worry about
you
, okay?”

“You won’t need to.”

I pulled away from him and started toward the hallway to the study. “Let me grab Nathaniel’s book for you before we
forget it,” I called back to him.

Will wasn’t in the study when I got there, but the computer still hummed and our flight information was printed out beside it. I pulled the grimoire from the shelf where I’d hidden it and made my way back to the living room. I slowed when I heard Will’s and Cadan’s voices.

“I wanted to thank you,” Will said, seeming to force the words out, “for saving my life. And for keeping her safe.”

“It was nothing, really,” Cadan replied. “Don’t mention it.”

“I mean it. That wasn’t nothing. I’ve been…less than kind to you. I’m sorry for hitting you.”

“You had every right to.”

“Regardless, I shouldn’t have hit you,” Will said. “I apologize. Honestly.”

“I’ll try not to give you another reason to beat me up.”

Will paused and I peeked around the corner at them. “You’ve done so much for both of us,” he said. “You’ve proven your loyalty. It has been hard to let go of the past, but you’ve earned my respect. And my trust.”

This time, Cadan was the one who didn’t respond right away, but when he did, his words were heavy with sincerity. “Thank you, Will.”

“Brothers?” Will asked him.

“Friends?” Cadan held out his hand.

A hesitation. “Yeah.” Will shook Cadan’s hand. “Friends.”

I couldn’t help my own smile. This was the moment I’d
been waiting for. I turned the corner and bounced up to the reapers, giving them both an enormous, knowing grin.
“Hello-o-o-o-o,”
I sang and shoved the grimoire into Cadan’s hands. “Good to see you guys are getting along.”