Stained (21 page)

Mystified, Julia stepped to the door, and the cloudy window through which she could see a hazy image of someone's back yard. She heard odd voices, raised in laughter. Without hesitating--what was the point anymore?--she pushed the squeaky door open.

She had to shield her eyes against the light. It wasn't bright; it was, in a weird way, dark. But there was a lot of it. Julia blinked through the canopy above her. The sky was so solidly gray that she wondered if someone had forgotten to draw it.

The smoky, tangy scent of barbecue slid up her nose, and Julia followed the smell to a large, familiar, middle-aged black man. He wore a purple polo and khaki shorts, covered in the front by a blue apron. Back half turned, he was manning a grill and talking to two women who sat on opposite sides of a picnic table to his left. Julia couldn't understand anything he said. His voice was high-pitched, and his words were a fast jumble of nonsense, like someone had placed his mouth on rewind.

The women sounded the same. The first, whose back was to Julia, was about the same age as the man. She wore blue jeans and a purple vest and had short hair.

The woman facing Julia seemed so familiar, that for a split second Julia thought she was seeing herself. Except the woman was stunningly beautiful. Loose, brown corkscrews bounced below a heart-shaped face. Her smooth mocha skin bunched slightly at the corners of her eyes as she laughed. Her mouth, pretty and pink, opened, revealing a perfect set of white teeth.

But it was her large, amber eyes that caught Julia's attention. It was those eyes that were the most familiar. She just couldn't--

The home's glass back door slid open and someone familiar bounded down three stone steps. Cayne. Except different. His skin was fleshier somehow. Softer. Muscles still bulged from beneath a blue polo, but they were rounder, somehow less lean, as if the only action they saw was in a gym.

His hair was short and trimmed and his face was clean-shaven. His eyes were still green, but less deep.

He called something to the man at the grill in that disconcerting language and, smiling hugely, sat down next to the familiar girl. Three things happened, then: the black man turned, so Julia could see his face. He was Sam. While Julia tried to recover from her shock, Cayne leaned to the woman and kissed her.

And Julia remembered where she had seen those eyes.

Sam brought over the first plate, which he handed to Cayne. He said something squeaky. Cayne and the two women laughed, and immediately Julia knew that the Cayne and Sam doppelgangers and the two women with them were a family. Sam was the kind but stern father. The woman, whose face Julia still couldn't see, was the doting mother. Cayne was the son. The amber-eyed girl was the woman from Cayne's memories.

Julia felt her throat tighten and reminded herself that it wasn't real. That wasn't her Cayne, even if he had the same beautiful face.

A roll of thunder shook her out of her gloom. The family, now together at the table, didn't seem to notice. Julia had the vague sense that she should warn them about the storm, but then she felt her eyes drop, and felt something hook in her head and begin to carry her away, and the house and the table and Cayne and the gray sky and the beautiful woman smeared together and rearranged themselves as cushions and a dark room.

Rosa was swaying slightly, and her eyes were closed.

Chapter 27

Julia blinked at the seer. Her chin was titled, so in the shadows her eyes looked like two dark holes. Her back was strait, and she seemed to sway to a tune Julia could almost hear.

"A great power from long ago is stirring," the seer intoned. "A conflict long buried is resuming. And you are being called to play your part."

"Part? What part?"

The seer rearranged herself on the cushion, took a long breath, and said, "You have many questions. There are two that can answer them. One pursues you. The second waits for you."

Julia felt a tingle down her spine. The girl in the dining cart that wasn't a dining cart had implied that the other Stained were looking for her. "How do I find them?"

"Stay on your path," Rosa said. "But remember that it is your path. Trust your instincts, and be wary of those that would have you act against them."

"Where am I going?"

"The city you saw is a seat of power. Your answers wait for you there."

Julia sighed. Great. How many times could she and Cayne get attacked traveling back across the country? "Can't you tell me anything? What did all of the things I saw mean? Billy? The train? The guy and girl in the dining cart? And what about being Stained? You never told me anything about that!"

Rosa's face became grave. She opened her mouth, and then snapped it shut. Her skin seemed to lose its color, and she shook her head fearfully. "I have been blinded," she gasped, and then the curtain ripped in two.

Cayne dove into the room, tackling Julia. Malachi followed as the ceiling exploded and pieces of wood and tile rained down on them.

Through the crook of Cayne's elbow, Julia saw the giant Nephilim hunched protectively over his mother. Several crimson arrows protruded from his back. Rosa, beneath him, was also struck. She was wheezing; her breaths sounded wet.

Through a hole in the ceiling Julia saw a dark form knocking an arrow. She opened her mouth to warn Cayne, but he was one step ahead, hurling his dagger through the hole. Its target thudded onto the carpet beside them.

Cayne yanked his dagger free and tossed it to Julia. He claimed the dead Nephilim's bow and arrows. Julia watched, astonished, as the thing's wings folded in on themselves and disappeared. Poof.

"They're Samyaza's," he said. "There are others."

"There are?"

Cayne glanced at Rosa and her son, his face pained. "Take care of them."

The entire ceiling collapsed under the weight of several Nephilim. Cayne sent an arrow through one's neck and shot another through the heart before the remaining three tackled him.

"Cayne!"

He reared, throwing two of the Nephilim off his back. He tossed the third away, and smashed a table over the head of the first one to get up.

Julia swallowed her fear and crawled to where Rosa and Malachi lay. Using all of her strength, she pushed the huge man off the seer. Rosa gasped and spit up some blood. "My son."

Julia prodded his aura. It was too weak. She tried to keep the sorrow off her face as she turned her attention to Rosa.

With a flick of her hand, the seer closed herself. "My son," she pleaded.

Julia looked away. "He...he's too far--"

There was only one Nephilim left--a stocky Indian. He had wrapped himself around Cayne, choking him. Without thinking Julia grabbed a cordless radio from a corner and swung at the Nephilim's head. The blow knocked him off, but attracted the attention of a Nephilim with stringy blond hair. As Cayne grappled with the other, Julia's attacker advanced.

She held Cayne's dagger in front of her, and the Nephilim laughed. "It will take more than that," he taunted in a voice like broken glass.

He jabbed with his dagger, but Julia jumped out of its path. She stumbled over an overturned chair, but he was in front of her, moving faster than she could see. "Time to die."

Something crashed through a window and tackled Julia's attacker. She screamed when she realized it was the second biker that attacked them that night--the one who had gone missing. The biker smashed the Nephilim against the wall, and the Nephilim kneed the biker in the gut. He stabbed the biker in the back of the neck, and the biker fell.

The Nephilim smiled at Julia. Then Cayne slit his throat.

He glanced at the biker's body, puzzled, then turned. "Rosa?"

Julia tried to heal the seer again, but again she was cut off.

"The blood of...my killer has reached my heart. His poison has done its work." Rosa coughed. "There's no help...now."

Cayne checked Malachi. The great Nephilim was still drawing breath, but it was slow and laborious. Cayne looked anguished as he knelt by the seer. "I'm so sorry."

Rosa tried to smile. "You should be."

Cayne blinked, and the woman laughed weakly. "The only thing we can govern, Cayne, is our choices."

"Then let Julia heal you."

"No. My place is with my son. I'll join him soon."

Julia watched the woman's beautiful pearly aura wane. It wouldn't be long. Cayne closed his eyes and placed a hand over the seer's wrist. Julia took the woman's other hand, and together they sat, quiet on the rug, until Rosa's light died.

Cayne stared at the woman's face.

Julia felt as desolate as he looked.

"We need to leave," Cayne said quietly.

He helped Julia up and tucked her under his arm. They put on their shoes, Cayne expressionless, Julia trying not to cry, and moved together onto the porch. The instant her feet touched the cement, Julia saw something large and black out of the corner of her eye. After that, everything happened very quickly.

Cayne fell, and Julia felt strong hands under her arms. She screamed as Samyaza lifted her off the ground, swinging her like a rag doll as they rose above the house. Julia fought to push past the panic and call for Cayne, now on his feet. She screamed his name and watched him leap into the sky.

Wings seemed to spring from his back--the glossy charcoal feathers of her dreams--but Samyaza was flying high and fast, and too soon Cayne was just a dot.

Rooftops shrank to colored cubes amid big black veins of asphalt. Julia went limp, torn between a clawing desire to fight and her paralyzing fear of being dropped.

Then, like a ribbon unraveling blurrily fast, her brain sped up to comprehend, in quick succession, that Sam would definitely kill her, and he would use her as bait to get Cayne. Julia thought falling to her death would be better, but it wouldn't come to that anyway because Cayne would save her. She trusted him with fanatical surety.

And so, more than a thousand feet above the ground, Julia pulled Cayne's dagger from her jeans and stabbed Sam in the arm.

Chapter 28

Samyaza's attack snapped Cayne's inertia, making him summersault before his head smacked the concrete porch. He watched as a hundred cement splinters bottle-rocketed away from the impact, whirling around him like dead leaves ripped from their branches by a gale.

Then the pain came: hot cold intense, like a smoldering iron through the ear.

Cayne was up in an instant, his charcoal wings ripping through his shirt as the patio crumbled, his legs leaping before his first cut bled.

He was certain Samyaza was going to kill Julia. The older Nephilim couldn't out fly him with the extra weight, but he could snap her neck. He could grin his stark white grin as he dropped her lifeless body.

Cayne crossed two hundred feet with one flap of his wings. Then three hundred.

Julia was struggling, her face shifting between horror and determination. Her eyes were focused, but her lips trembled and her nostrils flared. She stretched, and Cayne's dagger edged toward Samyaza. It met flesh. Samayza reeled. She fell.

Cayne threw his momentum over his head, looped in mid-air, and thrust his body toward her falling form, speeding, a whirl, the wind screaming, Samyaza yelling, Julia lounging on air, her body relaxed, waiting.

She fell into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, and buried her face in his shoulder. Her hair danced under his nose, and everything was vanilla and honey.

Cayne drew her closer. "Hang on."