Blood Oath (A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel, Book Two)

Blood Oath

Blood Oath (A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel, Book Two)

Copyright © 2011 by T.L. Clarke. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the Author, T.L. Clarke. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Copyright © 2011 T. L. Clarke. All rights reserved

ISBN-13: 9780984499335

Visit the author’s Web site:
http://www.tlclarke.blogspot.com

Cover design by: Nimbi Design

Blood Oath

A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel

T.L. Clarke

2012

 Dedication

For my mother, thanks for the faith

Gabby Girls Adventure
Novels

The Secret of the Scarlet Stone

Blood Oath

Acknowledgments

For all their amazing encouragement:

The Incredibly Awesome Motivator, Robbie

K.E.W.
—
thanks, you are the realist…

Robbie Girl
—
stay awesome, baby girl

Barbara C. from Tennessee!

To the Elements it came from, everything will return. Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air.

—Empedocles on Etna

THE ETERNALS

PART I

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the dark and powerful world of the
Eternals

Before I discovered
that I was born into a secret society called the
Eternals
, blood-oath Warriors sworn to track and slay the dark and evil creatures that walk the shadows of the earth, the only major thing that I, I mean we—that’s me, Jessica, Rosalinda, and Zora—cared about was starting our freshman year at Vineswell Academy, the prestigious boarding school for girls.

But that was way before the blinders were cruelly ripped from our eyes and cold reality slapped us on the back of our heads with a chain of not-so-nice realities, like the fact that everything we knew about our mothers was all lies, essentially smoke and mirrors designed to hide their very secretive lives as
Circles
, women Warriors inside the very deadly world of the
Eternal
Warriors.

Cold reality number one: the scarlet pendant that we all received on our thirteenth birthday was not just any ordinary pendant, but a crazy weird talisman and lifeline to our supernatural powers. Cold reality number two; we were all on some evil death wish list, created by expelled
Circle
Hannah, who planned on killing us just like she killed our mothers.

Mind-boggling, I agree, my reality amped to the tenth degree, absolutely, and the fact that it’s only been a week since our lives flipped from "normal" to crazy bizarre only makes me feel even worse. It’s way too soon to be shipped off to start official
Eternals
Warrior training at Transcendence Hall tomorrow morning. We just started secret
Eternals
101 cram sessions. Sessions taught by the
Eternal
Warriors sent to protect us while posing as lame Vineswell professors. Besides lecturing us on the basics of the
Eternals
, the only cool thing that they taught us were some basic combat moves, and that was after some pitiful begging on our part. It’s like they thought we were delicate flowers or something—I mean, I’ve seen more kick-butt combat moves on the animal channel.

And even though I hated some of the lame
Eternals
101 stuff, I was smart enough to take heed to some of the obviously important stuff, like:

The Eternals are kick-butt supernatural Warriors.
The women are Circles, and men are Ares Warriors, and all are born with a blood oath to serve as protectors against the Daemons and the Banished, who are essentially the foot soldiers for the Underworld.

The Elementi are powerful wielders of Element Magic.
Yes that means, fire, air, water, and earth magic…and without the Elementi, the Eternals would not exist.

The Banished and Daemons are the crazy scary foot soldiers for the Underworld.
The Banished = expelled Eternals and Elementi; Daemons = evil monsters created from the pits of the Underworld. The Banished + Daemons = foot soldiers for the Underworld, and their goal—kill all Eternals, Elementi, and humans (or what we call Normals).

*Extra Special Note: the Banished and Daemons smell like week-old garbage left out on a hot summer day, and if you smell them coming, run, don’t walk.

So, as you can clearly see…the
Eternals
Warriors’ world, my new world, is straight out of some off-the-chain blood-and-guts horror movie—minus the delicious buttery popcorn, of course. You know the kind of movie that, while you’re watching, you’re weirded out of your mind, you scream, you even laugh at some of the obviously stupid things, like the fake blood, the girl running then suddenly tripping over absolutely nothing as the evil killer approaches and then slaughters her without mercy, or the ridiculously crazed, ugly-looking monster who slaughters a whole town and then mysteriously disappears right before the cops show up? And when the movie ends, you’re like,
Um…yeah right, that was so unbelievable. That stuff never happens.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it does happen, every day…

chapter

ONE

Awkward smile equals
trying way too hard, and that was me smiling, trying to pretend that everything was okay in my world as I looked around the room that I shared with Jessica, Rosalinda, and Zora, my roommates and new friends. Sweat trickled down my forehead from the sheer effort of smiling like a clown. You see, I’m not one of those girls who smiles all the time; I’m actually a kick-your-butt kind of girl with no trace of perky cheerleader pep in my entire body.

But yet, there I was pretending to be cheery, hoping that if I faked it, then no one would realize that I was stressed out of my freaking mind about finally being hoisted off to
Eternals
Warrior training at Transcendence Hall…like, unbelievably "I really want to puke all over the beautiful, shiny hardwood floors" stressed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy to be finally leaving Vineswell after sitting defenseless for a whole week—okay, well, almost defenseless. Grandma Celeste did make sure that the
Eternal
Council sent
Eternal
Warriors to watch over us before leaving on her emergency meeting with the
Eternals
. But the truth be told, I was actually anxious about maybe not living up to her expectations and failing out of Warrior training with a big
L
for "Loser" carved in bold letters on my forehead. I gritted my teeth with determination.
No, failure is not an option ever
… and maybe if I kept repeating that over and over, then it would ease my stress, maybe a little.

I scooted further down into the comfy window seat, sighing loudly as I looked out the window, taking in the quiet darkness that spread across the courtyard now empty of Vineswell girls. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I tucked the binder crammed with
Eternals
information between my chest and knees and just stared into space. And then I heard the most unthinkable thing that just set my teeth on edge.

"Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty," Rosalinda muttered importantly as she brushed her silky long black hair.

My gaze snapped over to her quickly, taking in the ridiculous pride gleaming in her eyes over something that was so absolutely frivolous and stupid that it made me want to rip her throat out like a rabid animal.

"Seriously, Princess Rosalinda, some of us are actually trying to study here." I glowered at her. I was already on the edge, and now everything around me sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard, case in point, Rosalinda and her annoying hair-brushing ritual every night.

Rosalinda’s eyes flashed heatedly. "We’ve already been through this, like, a million times, so let me repeat this, like, really slow. This… is…the…only…thing…that…relaxes…me. So, back the heck off already." She swiveled quickly, looking mockingly at my disheveled, long, curly brown hair that was twisted into two dog-eared ponytails. "Besides, maybe if you took more time to get that together"—she looked pointedly at my hair—"then you would understand how important it is to get your hair right."

I stared at her hotly. "And maybe if you would take more time to concentrate on real important stuff, like studying, then you wouldn’t be so clueless."

Jessica rounded on both of us with blonde hair flying wildly like a cornered animal. "That’s it. That’s really it. If I have to hear you two go at it again, I’m seriously going to hurt one of you. And Gabrielle"— she looked at me with hurt baby blue eyes—"what happened to all that ‘Gabby Girls Adventure, we’re friends forever’ stuff?"

With mouths hanging open, Rosalinda and I just stared at her with shock. Mild-mannered and nervous Jessica had just morphed into angry "I’m going to kick your butt" Jessica. And under a less stressful situation, this would have been real hilarious but now, it just shamed me into silence because I knew that she was right. We shouldn’t be arguing. We had way more important things to worry about, like the monumental issue of our mothers’ magical legacy weighing on our shoulders.

Rosalinda’s eyes taunted me as she pursed her pouty lips and liberally applied lip gloss smacking them annoyingly.

Taking the bait, I narrowed my gaze and waved my skinny binder in the air wildly. "Hello? We’ve got to cram a gazillion pages of worth of
Eternals
info before tomorrow morning, and you’re sitting there pasting on lip gloss like you’re getting ready to audition for some reality show. Get over yourself already."

Rosalinda rolled her cat-shaped green eyes with exasperation. "Really, I can’t read another word.
Ya es suficiente—
enough is enough."

I rolled my eyes. Every time Rosalinda spoke, it was like a Spanish lesson with every other word peppered in her native language.

Jessica shook her head at us, then threw her hands up in the air with defeat. "Okay, I give up. Just kill each other already and be done with it so that Zora and I can study in peace."