Pretty Dark Sacrifice (2 page)

From his palms to the soles of his feet, Aaron’s skin burned. Face down, he moaned in agony. His consciousness floated in a sea of boiling blood, fever liquefying him from the inside out. Soon he would be nothing but a puddle, a dark red stain for someone to mop up. Would they use one of those spongy things with the blue head that you squeezed between two rollers to clean him up? Or would they go for the white, ropy kind that looked like an alien octopus? A laugh bubbled in his brain but never made it to his lips. Would they use water to wash him away?

Water?

His thoughts frowned. Water seemed important. He had to get out of the water, make it back to shore.

His thoughts laughed again. He was too hot to be in water. He was on fire, and fire can’t survive in water. More likely he had fallen asleep in a volcano, or was shoved into the oven by some evil children like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Was he a witch in a gingerbread house like in some fairy tale? Gingerbread, his stomach rumbled.

Beneath him, he barely noticed the rough stone floor cooling his naked body. He’d never felt so weak, so empty. His insides were a melted mess, his skin a thin layer of plastic barely holding them back. Without his skin holding it all in, he would be a pond, a lake, a river.

River. Water.

If only his skin would release the raging fire and flood within, he would drink and drink and drink until there was nothing left. Nothing. Not one drop.

So thirsty.

“Shhhh.” Moisture trickled into his mouth, and he stuck out his tongue to catch each drop. A cool hand stroked his cheek, nurturing, loving. His body relaxed, the water reviving a tiny piece of his sanity.

There was something important he needed to do. A girl with blond hair, he had to protect her, to warn her. Who was she? Warn her about what?

Aaron!

A hot poker lanced through the back of his skull, a fire of his psychic gifts in the back of his brain.

Tell me where he is!

Quinn
. Her name thrummed through Aaron. A slim thread connected them. A familiar magnetic pull yanked him as she reached out with her mind. The river, he had jumped in to save her. Panic filled him. He had to get back to her, save himself, but his body had no fight left.

“Sleep now, and forget about her,” a woman’s voice cooed. His mother’s maybe, its soft, familiar cadence lulling him like a drug. Gentle fingers ran through his hair. “You must forget to remember.”

Quinn’s energy ebbed, and he felt her moving farther away, her voice in his mind growing fainter. As quickly as it came, his shimmer of clarity faded, the girl with the blond hair nothing but a ghost in his unconscious.

“Shhhh. That’s right.”

His breath slowed along with his heartbeat, and within seconds, he found himself in a raging river. Relentless tides dragged at his limbs, forcing him down, down, down beneath the surface. He fought his body’s need to breathe as pressure squeezed against his chest, a thousand ropes pulling tighter and tighter. The more he struggled, the tighter the ropes pulled. Left, right, down, up? No matter which way he turned, nothing but brackish water surrounded him. Ate his strength. Crushed his resistance. Then the currents dragged him deeper.

As Aaron slipped farther and farther beneath the inky waves, a girl’s hand appeared. Small and pale, it reached out to him. Tendrils of red hair glowed in a shaft of moonlight, floating like a luminescent halo around her smooth, heart-shaped face. Ruth. She was the only bright spot in the rolling dark. Fitting that his baby sister would come to take him home. They should have drowned together long ago. Fate had finally gotten around to correcting its mistake.

Ruth smiled, suspended above him like a water angel.

He smiled and tried to take her hand, but it remained just out of reach.

The box. What did you do with it?

What box? What was she talking about?

I need it. Please, it’s important.
Aaron frowned. Something wasn’t right. Ruth’s lips spoke with someone else’s voice. The vision of her rippled, red hair turned to black, green eyes to silver. Ruth but not Ruth.

Aaron felt a tug at his leg and looked down to see a swirling vortex open beneath him. The current sucked at his limbs, trapping him in its grip as Ruth floated away, her face twisting in anger before disappearing all together.

A maniacal laugh bubbled to Aaron’s lips.
You’re dying. Can’t you feel it? Your organs are shutting down, your neurotransmitters going on the blink as your brain turns off. Soon there won’t be anything left of you but a lifeless body.
Aaron’s mind laughed at him again.
You’re literally circling the drain, dude.

No use fighting anymore, Ruth was gone and he was alone. Sinking, sinking, sinking, his heart a weight dragging him into an abyss of hopelessness. Hope was nothing more than a lie. Ruth couldn’t save him. Nobody could. He was already dead.

“Quinn! Wake up!” Azrael’s stern voice pierced through the dream, his face swimming before her as the nightmare faded. She was home, safe in her own bed, her two-week recovery in the hospital nothing but an extracted memory used to torture her. The sulfurous fragrance of dead demon permeated the room, clung to her hair and pajamas. Azrael’s handy work, no doubt. He had dispatched the demons feeding off her while she slept. No matter, there were plenty more where they came from.

“Quinn.” Light spilled across her bedroom floor. Her Sentinel burned brighter than any sun, and she wished she could turn him off. “How many times must I tell you? Keep your shield up at all times, even when you sleep.” Azrael’s steely tone matched the look on his face. If frowns could kill, she would be dead.

A curved, runed sword hung on each hip—one blade etched with electric blue symbols, the Qeres blade, poison to any immortal soul; the other etched by golden sun, a blade with the power to separate an essence from a mortal body. Black leather vambraces protected his forearms and a red sash adorned the waist of his loose-fitting pants, carefully tucked into a pair of knee-high, black combat boots. “It is a dangerous game you play, Quinn, and I am not always around to clean up your messes.”

“Go away, Azrael.” She pulled the covers over her head. “I command you.”

Muscles tensed as the mattress squeaked beneath the weight of her guardian angel.

“Why are you still here? I commanded you to leave. You said my powers would compel you to obey.”

Azrael pulled the duvet from her face and sighed. Quinn still didn’t understand how an ethereal being, which moved between dimensions and was invisible to everyone but her, could interact with everyday objects.

“Your power does not lie within a word itself. Words are like the wind, ever changing and unpredictable.” Quinn rolled her eyes with the start of yet another of Azrael’s lectures. “It stems from the core of your essence, from your thought. Be clear and true in your intent and confident in your execution. It must be felt as well as spoken. Know what you want and command it to happen.”

“I really wanted you to leave, believe me.”

Azrael shrugged. “You will get the hang of it soon, I’m sure.”

“Soon? You said I would have all this power when I turned eighteen, that I would be able to banish them or whatever. That was weeks ago, and I can barely block them, let alone kill them. Teach me. Show me what to do.”

“It is your gift, not mine. Only you know how to use it.”

Azrael claimed she was the reincarnation of Eve, Keeper of the Garden of Eden, born to be some sort of savior and restore the balance of good and evil in the human realm. But how could she be expected to save humanity when her own life was such a mess? Or maybe she wasn’t really the essence of Eve. Maybe Azrael made a mistake.

“Eve’s blood does indeed flow through you. No mistake.”

“I told you to stay out of my thoughts.” Quinn loathed the idea of Azrael tapping into every secret tucked away inside her.

“That’s rather hard to do when your mind is nothing but chaos, and your thoughts are spewing out like bits of shrapnel, hitting anyone passing by. You lack focus, even after all these weeks. Even now, the demons confuse and distract you with thoughts of that boy.”

“Aaron. His name is Aaron.” Quinn stared at her hands.

Azrael’s voice softened. “It was Aaron’s destiny to die as it is yours to live. Nothing could have changed that path. It was chosen with every minute decision you both made throughout the span of your lifetimes, as was mine. It would be easier to untangle a million knots soaked in glue than to try to change your fate. Don’t throw away Aaron’s sacrifice by playing Russian roulette with those beasts. They do not hold the answers you seek.”

“Then who does? You?”

Azrael crossed his arms over his chest. “You know the answer as well as I. He is gone. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can fulfill your duty.”

“He’s missing, not dead,” Quinn mumbled.

Azrael shook his head but didn’t argue. She was sick of all this talk of duty. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

“Because my job is to protect and guide you.” He gripped the pommels of his swords, muscles rippling beneath flawless flesh.

Annoying as his personality was, he was glorious to behold. A fire burned beneath his olive skin and behind his marbled, amber eyes. Dark hair hung around his face, framing a square jaw and perfectly symmetrical features. It didn’t matter how often she’d seen him standing before her, his ageless beauty went beyond human words, awe forcing her jaw to her chin. Although she guessed he was thousands of years old, his looks were deceiving. Except for the onyx wings that spilled from his back to brush the floor, in a modern outfit, he could have passed for another high school student.

“Darkness approaches, and my task is to prepare you for battle. Your task is to let me. I can’t do that when you’re letting yourself get eaten up by guilt. Now, stop sulking and get out of bed. You must be able to guard yourself and not rely on me for everything.”

Goose bumps rose on her arms as the chilled air met bare flesh. Quinn glared at Azrael, who held the duvet in his fist.

“I’m tired.” She crossed her arms and pushed her lip out.

“All the better. Demons don’t care if you’re tired.” He took a step back and drew a sword with his free hand. “They eat tired for lunch. Even now, I see at least a dozen holes in your barrier.” He flourished the golden blade. “Have you learned nothing?”

“Perhaps there is a problem with your teaching methods.” She snatched at the duvet, but Azrael was quicker.

A blur of black wings and golden light flashed past her as Azrael darted to the far corner and took his battle stance. “I assure you my teaching methods are sound. It’s your attitude that’s the problem.” With his other hand, he dangled the duvet in challenge. “You want it? Come and get it.” Dropping the cover to the ground, he unsheathed the other sword hanging from his right hip. The markings etched on its metal blazed as it cleared the scabbard. A whirlwind of blue and gold flared as Azrael advanced, swords twisting and spinning in a bright flourish around him.

Quinn scrambled away until her back pressed against the headboard. Azrael slashed the golden blade down across her shoulder. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she threw an invisible barrier up with her mind, deflecting the attack, but not before the sword’s tip grazed the fabric of her T-shirt, ripping a small hole in the sleeve. Her favorite Skipping Zombies band T-shirt, ruined.

“Hey! You could have cut me!”

“But I didn’t.”

The barrier of light surrounding her quivered as Azrael’s essence bumped against her protective wall, testing, looking for a way in.

“You must not hesitate. Once they breach your protective barrier, it will crumble and leave you defenseless.” The pressure grew as he pushed harder, his intent clear. Her palms were slick with sweat as she resisted, willing him, commanding him to stay out of her thoughts. The sound of her ragged breath overtook her rapid heartbeat. He was strong, but she was determined.

“Better.” The pressure eased, and he grinned. “You must be strong of mind. That is the most important.” He circled the bed, one sword poised above his head, the other in front of his chest in a defensive posture. “Add that to a strong body, and you’ll be twice as deadly.”