Betrayed

BETRAYED

EDNAH WALTERS

Copyright © Ednah Walters 2011

Firetrail Publishing

Logan, UT

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it

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Reproducing this book without permission from the author or the publisher is an infringement on its copyright. This book is a work of fiction. The names characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any actual events or persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Firetrail Publishing

P.O. Box 3444 Logan,

UT 84324

Copyright © 2011 Ednah Walters

Al rights reserved.

ISBN: 0983429731

ISBN-13: 978-0983429739

Edited by Melissa Maytnz and May Novack Cover Design by Margaret McFarland and Keary Johnson Landon.

Keary Johnson Landon.

Al Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in

any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case

of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Firetrail Publishing
publication: August 2011

www.firetrailpublishing.com

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my two older brothers, Dave and Arthur.

Thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most.

You are the best brothers a sister could ever have.

Dave, may you rest in peace.

Arthur, love you, big bro.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my editors, Melissa Maytnz and May Novack, and my beta-reader Suzanne Lazear for their wonderful catches, thank you.

You guys are gurus at streamlining a manuscript.

To the ladies at KWCritgroup—Dawn Brown, Teresa Bel ow, Katherine Warwick/Jennifer Laurens,

you guys are amazing.

To Mike and my wonderful children,

thank you for your unwavering love and support.

You inspire me in so many ways

Love you, guys.

1. The Phone Call

A yel ow Corvette shot past us and sped west on Grizzly Boulevard. I leaned forward and watched it as Remy parked his SUV in the lot across from Cache High.

“What a moron,” Sykes said from the back seat.

“Someone who totaled his car a few weeks ago shouldn’t be cal ing any driver a moron.” Remy spoke slowly while admiring his new moustache and beard in the rearview mirror.

“I didn’t total my car,” Sykes retorted. “It’s just a little dent, something you could fix in your sleep if you weren’t such an ass.” He punched the back of Remy’s seat.

I hid a smile. The way these two traded insults, you’d never guess they were best friends.

After knowing them for seven months, I’d reached one conclusion—they were more alike than different.

They were single-minded and unstoppable when it came to hunting demons, and both were gorgeous.

Sykes was your typical high school hottie—

carefree, handsome, long blond hair, scruffily dressed in ripped jeans and tees to downplay his good looks so girls wouldn’t be al over him. His words, not mine. I thought he deliberately tried to be different from Remy, who was a meticulous dresser.

Remy also took his job as the leader of our group of teen demon hunters too seriously to obsess over girls, but that didn’t stop him from taking advantage of the ones who drooled over his dreamy gray eyes and smooth golden-brown complexion.

Tuning out their testosterone showdown, my gaze fol owed the yel ow car. Didn’t the driver realize the road was icy? The weather in the Cache Val ey had been weird for months. It snows a lot during winter in northern Utah, but it was April now. We were having an unseasonal steady snowfal with sporadic freezing rain for weeks, creating the one thing I hated the most—black ice.

Driving in the snow was a nightmare to begin with, but black ice was worse than a demon in the dead of night. Demons were predictable. They targeted humans to entice them into sel ing their souls and avoided us, the Cardinal Guardians, like the plague. Black-ice, on the other hand, didn’t discriminate. It defied al laws of nature, science, and…oh, no, my physics assignment.

Heart racing, I unzipped my backpack and dove inside for the folder. Phew, I had it. I flipped through the pages to make sure I’d stapled them in the right order. Last time I misplaced a page, prune face Sorenson chewed my ear off. Not that he needed an excuse. That teacher had disliked me from day one. He must hate five-foot-nine redheads with unmanageable curly hair and green eyes, or maybe he could tel I wasn’t ful y human. Not that I had the word Nephilim tattooed on my forehead.

Some humans, I was learning, were just perceptive.

Panicked words slammed into my head and cut into my thoughts.
What is he doing… What a
douche… He’s going to kill somebody... Oh man…

The guy is nuts…

Usual y I had to lock onto people’s psyche to know what they were thinking. This time, the streaming thoughts came at me from everywhere.

“Something is wrong.” I didn’t wait to see if Sykes or Remy fol owed, just grabbed my backpack, rushed out of the car and ran toward the street. I tried to locate the source, and almost fel a few times.

Cold stung my cheeks and my breath came out in Cold stung my cheeks and my breath came out in cloudy puffs.

Then I saw them, students on the sidewalk gesturing wildly toward a yel ow car speeding along Grizzly Boulevard from the west. It was the same Corvette that had shot past us a few minutes ago.

Slow down.
I projected the words into the driver’s head.

“You were right, Sykes. The driver is a total moron,” Remy said from behind me.

I ignored him and continued to send the driver messages.
Slow down before you hurt someone.

There’s a stop sign coming up. Step on the stupid
brakes.

He must have pushed on the brake pedal but was going too fast. His wheels slid and spun. The car careened to the right, did a one-eighty and slid sideways toward the sidewalk. The driver wrestled with the steering wheel, but it was useless. The car kept sliding.

Don’t panic. You can still stop. Pump the
brakes.
Too bad that same move didn’t work on Grampa’s truck for me two weeks ago.
Stay calm.

No matter what happens, don’t panic.

“It’s not working,” Remy said.

“She’l have to do more than mind-control,” Sykes added.

“No, she can’t. Not when demons aren’t involved,” Remy warned.

“Of course she can,” Sykes retorted. “When’s the last time the Council’s outdated code stopped us? Besides, the driver is a douche.”

“There are too many witnesses,” Remy snapped.

“I can hear you two, you know.” Just because I was sixteen and they were eighteen didn’t mean they had to decide what I should or shouldn’t do. Using my psi abilities in front of people would land me in a heap of trouble with the High Council, the sour-faced Guardians who acted as our watchdogs, but I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing while Remy and Sykes argued.

My eyes widened when two girls stepped out from a line of parked cars and started across the crosswalk. This could get bad fast. The girls had their heads pressed close as they giggled over a text message on a cel phone, oblivious to the out-of-control car.

Watch out for the girls,
I screamed at the driver.

He must have noticed them because whatever calmness my thoughts had given him evaporated. He shifted to ful -panic mode, the four-letter curse word he kept repeating echoing in my head.

I dropped my backpack. “I’m doing this,” I warned Remy and Sykes.

“Fine. We’l cover you,” Remy growled, not sounding happy.

Raising my hand, I locked onto the car. Even though I was a strong psi, I hadn’t ful y mastered my telekinetic powers and needed to use my hands to accomplish anything. Remy stood on my left, blocking me from any on-lookers. Sykes guarded my right.

Traction increased on the wheels, and the driver’s head snapped backward as I curled my fingers and telekinetical y pul ed the car. Screams from the two girls split the air as they final y realized the danger they were in. Worse, they froze right in the path of the car. Students gawked and pointed as the car jerked and shuddered to a stop a few inches from where the girls cowered in fear. Within seconds, friends rushed forward and surrounded them.

The driver’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his eyes wide as he stared over his shoulder at the rear end of the car, which was suspended in the air. I quickly lowered my hand until the back tires landed on the snowy gutter, but it was too late. Across the street, two guys pointed at me and whispered excitedly. My bel y clenched. We weren’t going to get out of this mess unless we acted fast.

“We have witnesses,” I whispered.

“Take care of them while we do a sweep,” Remy instructed.

I listened to the witnesses’ thoughts. They were confused, not sure whether to believe what they just saw. Did I real y stop the car? Was I a witch?

Humans’ obsession with witchcraft was hilarious. If only they knew what we were.

Forget what you saw me do. It is not
important. We were doing a silly dance. The driver
is the hero here. He stopped the car and prevented
an accident. Hydraulics caused his car to lift in the
an accident. Hydraulics caused his car to lift in the
air. Nothing unusual. Guys pimp their rides all the
time.

The guys’ attention shifted as though prodded. Like the other students, they hurried forward to gawk at the driver, who was getting out of his car. Ah, the power of persuasion at its best. It was my favorite psi ability. Immediately, I stopped feeling cocky and grimaced. The Guardian Code dictated we use Nephilimic glamour to hide our activities from humans, and I wasn’t supposed to mess with people’s free wil when a demon wasn’t involved. My only hope was the High Council wouldn’t find out about this.

Remy patted my back. “Good job. Search for other witnesses.”

Pushing my concerns aside, I scanned the thoughts of students within our visual range. No one else noticed my telekinetic move. “I think we’re in the clear.”

“I second that,” Sykes said with relief.

“No, we’re not,” Remy said, and groaned.

“Look behind us.”

We turned and echoed his groan. Standing by Remy’s car was a tal skinny man with stringy white hair and beard, his lined face furrowed in disapproval. A flowing linen robe and matching pants barely covered his sandaled feet. He looked like a starved hobo.

“Master Haziel,” I whispered and shuddered.

This was the first time I broke the Guardian Code in weeks, and
he
just had to witness it. Way to go, Lil.

Students passed the old man without staring or breaking their stride. Haziel’s body dimmed before coming into focus again.

“His astral image,” Remy said.

Whether it was the real man or his projection, he instil ed fear in al of us.

“I swear Leather Face sleeps with his psi energy tuned to everything we do,” Sykes griped.

“Every time we use our powers, he’s there.” A week ago, Izzy, the Cardinal Guardian trainee with the ability to control time and our group healer, mended a kid’s crushed ribs on our way home from school. She saved his life before the paramedics got there, but Haziel stil chewed us out for getting involved.

“So what do we do now? Go back to HQ for another lecture?” I asked, the knot in my stomach tightening.

“I think he’s just trying to tel us he knows what happened here and that we can’t B.S. our way out of it like the last time,” Sykes whispered, sounding more hopeful than sure.

“I’l head back to HQ and explain,” Remy offered, and a sigh escaped me.

If anyone could placate the old man, it was Remy. As soon he started for his car, Haziel’s image grew hazy and disappeared.