Waiting for Mercy (Cambions) (29 page)

Even with the sun above and my eyes barely open, I saw the bright stream of light coming from somewhere out of my sight.  My first thought was Luke.  He’d come to save me.  Gratefully, I closed my eyes, knowing this nightmare would be over soon.

Covering my face, I expect relief.  I didn’t hear any more noises, so I assumed Luke’s angel light had banished the demon back to hell where it belonged.  The footsteps were muted against the grass and coming straight for me.

My face hurt and I’d have a shiner for sure.  I didn’t remove my hands not wanting Luke to see the bruising on my face.

“You’re safe,” a familiar voice said. “I’ll be right back.”

The voice wasn’t right though.  It wasn’t the voice I’d hoped it to be.  My brain couldn’t reconcile who I’d heard and why that person would be here on an empty road.

Alone, all the sounds around me came into focus.  My head still hurt but I heard the unmistakable sound of a pained noise in the form of a yelp that had to be the demon dog.  Then I heard a curse and nothing.  I tried to move but my body ached.  When another noise sounded close, I opened my eyes preparing to mount an attack.  But Sebastian’s face contorted with concern, appeared right above mine.

“Are you ok?” he asked.  His eyes contradicted his worried features.  They were the same beautiful empty eyes that I’d always seen, but now they terrified me.  I couldn’t say for sure why, I just knew somewhere inside me that I should be afraid.

“Hey demon boy, move aside,” the voice said.  When he did, I saw Nina push Sebastian away from me.  She too had a concerned expression on her face.  When she moved to place her hands on my face, I swatted them away.  “I’m ok,” I sputtered. “I was doing fine.  I would have had him.” Even to me the words seemed hollow.

Nina mouth flattened into a thin line. “Look, I don’t like this more than you do, but Luke would kill me.”  She placed her hands on my face and I felt a warm sensation cascade outward.  Was she healing me?  I remembered back at the lake house the night Luke had conveniently shown up.  I’d twisted my ankle.  He’d placed his hands on me in a similar fashion.  I’d just assumed that his warm touch was body heat.  But no, he’d healed me.

“Better,” she said.  I nodded not wanting to speak.  I didn’t like this girl and she didn’t like me.

“We need to get out of here,” Sebastian said. “Others may come and things will only get worse.”

He stood and Nina stood too, getting in his face.  All of a sudden it was as if I wasn’t there.  Nobody helped me up as they began talking amongst themselves.

“You’re not taking her to Poison,” she said.  Paimon, I thought not poison.  But then I guess she was trying to be insulting.  Nina and I weren’t friends.  I just didn’t know her well enough.  I didn’t know why she was here.

“Who the hell are you?” he said.  That didn’t seem right.  He knew Nina.  Why would he say that?  “She wants to go.”

“Yeah, what coercion method did you use to get her to go along,” she accused.

“I don’t have time for this,” Sebastian said.

“I’m not going to let you take her,” she said.

“You and what army,” he countered.

She didn’t speak for a second. “I’ll send you back,” she said.  And I knew what she meant.

“You’re not strong or fast enough. Don’t make me hurt you angel girl,” he promised.

And there it was.  Nina was an angel.  I’ll be damned.

I pushed up on my elbows.  “Nina, I have to go get Flynn,” I said. 

Her eyes grew wide. “What in the hell is he doing there?” she asked.

“We can talk about this later. There isn’t enough time now,” I said.

She looked at Sebastian and he nodded at her.  “Fine, I ride with you guys and we can discuss this.”

Finally, they helped me to my feet.  I pushed them away when they tried to carry me to the car.  My ego was bruised enough and I needed to prove to myself that I could make it own my own.  So I’d been dragged, punched and thrown to the ground.  It could have been a lot worse.

Once the car was on its way I turned to Nina who was folded in the back seat.  Her black hair shined in the sunlight.  “Why are you here?” I asked her.

I don’t think anyone would have expected the next words out of her mouth. “I’m your guardian angel.”

surreptitious
(adj.)
stealthy

Nina could have hit me with a two by four and I would have been less surprised.  “You’re my what?” I blustered.

“Well, actually Luke was assigned to you.  He’s my mentor.  But when the two of you got together, he unofficially turned the assignment over to me.”

I blinked.  I couldn’t speak.  Words had never failed me until this moment.  I’d learned a lot over the past half year, and nothing shocked me more.  Luke was my guardian angel.  Why hadn’t he told me?  He’d given me over to the care of his ex-girlfriend who hated me.  What the heck was he thinking?

All I managed to say was, “You don’t even like me.”

“It’s my job, Mercy. I don’t have to like you,” she said flatly.

Ok, my mind might have been confused with the punch to the head because my next response was, “I don’t even know what I ever did to you.”

“We would have gotten back together if it weren’t for you,” she stated.  There it was.  I knew it, but now it was out in the open.  I didn’t bother to tell her that Luke never loved her.  It didn’t seem the right time seeing as she’d saved my life.

“That’s on Luke, not me,” I said. “Don’t blame me because he broke up with you.”

She turned away from my gaze.  I turned back around in my seat watching the mountains get closer.  “How long?” I asked.  My question was for Sebastian, but I never turned towards him when I said it.

“Not long,” he said.

“Mercy, this is a bad idea.  I won’t be able to protect you in there,” she said.

I didn’t like that she assumed I needed her protection.  It didn’t matter what happened out on the road.  She couldn’t say for sure that I couldn’t have saved myself.  “I have to go and save Flynn.”

She bristled.  “What about Luke?” she retorted sharply.

I didn’t like what she was suggesting.  But I also wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that he and I weren’t on the best of terms right now.  “I’m sure he would agree that helping his best friend is the right course of action.”

Sebastian smirked and made a noise as if that was funny.  I turned to spear him with my pointed stare.  “Luke is in trouble too.  Don’t you even care about that?” she said.

Did he tell her what was going on in our relationship?  Bile leaped to my throat with that thought. “If Luke needed my help, he would have told me,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

She let out a sour laugh.  “He can’t call you.  They have him detained until the ruling on his case,” she said.

I felt my heart stop.  Somehow I knew she wasn’t talking about a court hearing about drinking and driving.  If it was a human court case, he would be entitled to a call, not that he would call me.  “What are you talking about?” I managed to say, wedging myself between the seats so I could look her in the eye when she spoke.

She pushed her short hair behind her ears before her eyes met mine again in a fierce stare.  “So you don’t know do you?”

I shook my head.  “What kind of trouble is he in?  Can I help him?  What can I do?”  I didn’t know how to choose between Luke and Flynn, but I first needed to understand who was in mortal danger.

 She continued, “There is nothing you can do. His judgment will be in three days.  You can’t get to him. It’s against the rules for me to take you to him.  And really, he’s in trouble because of you.  He gave up his post watching over you to me without authorization.  No one would have found out if not for you finding yourself in that trouble last year.  Now they know that the two of you are an item,” she said full of accusation.

I opened my mouth to dispute her claim.  But she beat me to the punch. “The council is going to clip his wings,” she spewed.

“What,” I got out.  “Luke said you all don’t have wings.”

“Yeah, it’s a figure of speech.  But besides that, his father is pissed. So I’d advise you to stay away from him. He’s already headed to talk to your mother,” she added, looking smug.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Of course you don’t,” she mimicked, like I was a whiny child. “Let me break it down for you.  Luke was a prodigy.  He was the one to break down the walls between angels and nephilim.  His father saw him as the one to help reinstate the Fallen.  But you, demon girl, came along and destroyed everything for all of us.”

“But,” I said, feeling like nothing more than boulders of my life’s wall crashing around me. “He said that he was already damned because he drinks and has sex and stuff.”  Then it hit me. I was almost going to ask her if she and Luke slept together when I caught myself.  Maybe realization dawned on my face because she smiled at me in smug satisfaction. “I don’t want to know,” I stated.

Something else crossed my mind though.  If he wasn’t supposed to sleep with anyone, she wasn’t either.  I looked back up into her eyes from the spot on the floor I’d been staring. But she beat me to it again like she could read my mind. “Sex is frowned upon, but we’re still part human.  What’s damning is sleeping with the other team,” she said, with utter coolness.

“I didn’t ask to be part demon,” I said, taking a stand.  “It’s not fair that you condemn me for a choice I didn’t have.”

Her face shifted letting me know that she didn’t believe one word I said. “You walk around school with the boys circling you like vultures.  You used that demon inside you to lure them and Luke to you.”

“That’s not true,” I complained.

“Let’s count them off.  You managed to get Luke to step away from his duties.  You’ve broken up Paul and Amber,” she said.  My eyes widened.  Is that what everyone was saying?  “And him, he’s changed the rules of the game.  You got him to fight against a tracker and a hell hound.  The shit is going to hit the fan.  And you don’t need to be anywhere near Poison.”

“Paimon,” Sebastian said.

I turned to him.  My terror from looking into those empty eyes melted away. “You protected me from your kind.  What kind of trouble will you be in?” I asked softly.

He just shrugged. “Yeah, see what I’m talking about,” Nina crooned from the back seat. “They’re all going gaga over you.  You aren’t that pretty.”  I should have been upset by her words.  But I was grateful she hadn’t mentioned Flynn. So maybe no one had noticed his interest in me.  I was probably right.  It was just his ego that had him saying those things to me.

I was shocked when Sebastian chimed in.  He seemed comfortable with Nina and me hashing this out on our own. “Mercy isn’t just pretty.  She’s beautiful and by far outshines your angel light.  You ought to wake up and realize why Luke left you for her.  She’s more of an angel than you are.  Your envious heart and jealous nature conflict with what you call yourself.”

Nina looked ill with his words.  I was embarrassed for her so I turned to face forward again.  I may not have liked her, but I didn’t want her to feel bad, for what reason I didn’t know. 

It was darker here where we pulled over on the side of the steep road.  We were on the mountain somewhere near the top.  The trees were choking out the light.

Needing to ask again, I said, “Nina, if I can help Luke out of this trouble I’ve caused him, I need you to help me.”

She looked at me with her arms folded, “Don’t you think you’ve done enough.”

“I won’t let them destroy him because of me,” I say.

“Look, he should be fine.”  I wasn’t mollified by her words.  She hadn’t said his life was in danger, so I had to assume damnation would be his worst fate.  “If you are going to do this,” she said pointing into the woods, “I can’t go with you, Mercy,” Nina said.  She almost sounded unhappy about that. “They have wards that will alert them to my presence.  But I can still sense you”