Dark Destiny (51 page)

“So, it was all a lie to you?” he asked in a pained voice. “Did you ever love me?” he choked out.

Sara’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and remained there, gathering her thoughts. “I loved the attention you gave me. That was nice. But love? I mean, come on.”

“So, if it was all just a lie, why Makayla of all people?” Sebastian asked through gritted teeth. “She was such a sweet girl, and you
—
”

“
Who
?” Sara asked.

A beat passed before Sebastian answered. “The girl you killed.”

Sara shook her head, annoyed. “What
about
her?”

That tone and disregard for life boiled his blood. He narrowed his eyes and the air in the room heated. She must have sensed it too because she took a step back, away from him. Her expression changed from cold and calculating to cautious.

“Listen,” said Sara, “you’re taking this way too personal. We just needed you to rip a soul down. That was it. This Makalinda?”

“Makayla,” he corrected with a stern tone.

“Whatever,” she waved her hand dismissively. “She was the closest match to my Soul. Think of it as somebody else on the planet that resembles you. Not a soul mate, that’s quite different. More like . . . a soul doppelganger. So, we matched her essence perfectly to mine and you brought her down thinking it was me. It could have been anybody really. It just so happened to be that girl. We did some research on her and found she wasn’t happy. We didn’t want her to end up in Purgatorium. You know that can happen sometimes if a person is depressed. So we made her fall in love. We found her soul mate, brought him into her life, and made sure she got into the Light. I mean really, we did her a favor. She probably died happy. Like I said, you’re taking this way too personal. It was just business.”

Feeling his anger rise once again, he exhaled slowly to calm himself. He didn’t want to run the risk of doing something he’d regret.

“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

“Of course I do.” Sara’s brows bumped together in a scowl. “What, do you think we just decided to do this on a whim? Believe it or not this took a lot of planning. Did you know that you weren’t supposed to be made active until you were twenty-one? But we couldn’t have that, could we? So we decided to activate you early. Seventeen years old is perfect. Seventeen-year-old boys are so stupid and immature.” She laughed lightly. “We knew you’d be controlled by your immaturity and do what any love sick teenage boy with new found power over life and death would do. Bring back his poor old girlfriend who had just died. Tragic really. If it wasn’t so pathetic.”

“You’re one cold hearted bi
—
”

“Did you like my hair color?” she interrupted.

Sebastian blinked. “What?”

She shook her head and her half shaved, red spiky hair turned back into the beautiful soft brown he loved. She smiled seductively at him. “Better, right? Did you know we did a study on you throughout your childhood? It seems you have a preference for brunettes. So we changed my hair so you’d like it more.” She rolled her eyes. “Seventeen-year-old boys are so shallow.”

Sebastian could only stare.

“Not only that,” she went on, “we learned you loved video games and kung-fu movies and Mortal Kombat.” She paused and smiled slyly. “As if any girl who looked the way I did would be into those things.”

She went to the cauldron and stirred whatever was in it.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, standing straight and turning to him. “Do you like my eye color?”

She turned her boring brown eyes onto him, blinked twice, and suddenly her eyes were the beautiful midnight blue he had loved.

Sebastian shook his head.

She laughed as her eyes changed back to brown. “I mean really, who has midnight blue eyes? Do you know how much of a pain in the ass that is to maintain?”

Sebastian still couldn’t find any words. This was probably the worst he had felt since the whole ordeal started.

But Sara wasn’t done.

“I mean, think about it Sebastian. You are so completely average looking. Do you think somebody who looks like you could possibly get somebody who looks like . . .” She shook her head, blinked her eyes, and waved her hands in front of her body. The beautiful Sara, the Sara who looked like a supermodel, appeared in front of him, “like this?”

Still, no words came. Only a pained heart.

And lots of anger.

Sara sighed. “You wanted to know the truth. I warned you that you were walking down a dangerous path. You wanted to wander, so here we are. Which brings me to the reason I even alerted you to my presence. I need something from you.”

Sebastian felt his face crinkle in absolute disgust. “You have lost your damn mind thinking I will do anything to help you ever again.”

Sara flashed him a smile. “Oh, you will. Or certain things might happen to a certain, cute little blonde I’ve seen you hanging around with.”

Sebastian inhaled. “Hope.”

“When we killed Jared the first time, it was just a warning that we could get to anybody we wanted. You can’t protect her all the time.”

She licked her lips and stared at him. “Listen close. If you want to save her life, you will bring down another Soul. You will do it right now, and you will hand that Soul over to me immediately. Or I will go to Hope’s house this instant and kill her myself. Trust me, the thought has crossed my mind many times.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Sebastian, taking long strides toward her, but as he reached the center of the room, the mangy looking rug faded away, revealing a glowing circle underneath. Within the circle, ritual patterning and runes pulsed and glowed. A mystical transparent shield flew up to the ceiling from the circle’s circumference, trapping him like a glass cage.

Sebastian gave her a twisted smile, staring her down. “You don’t want to do this,” he warned. “Now you’re the one walking down a dangerous road.”

“Please. Remember, I know you Sebastian. And one thing is for sure, you’re as harmless as a kitten.”

Sara gasped in shock as she leapt back as the tip of his scythe made contact with the barrier. The weapon tore a slit through it, causing golden hairline cracks to spread outward. She glared back at him in disbelief.

Sebastian cocked his head.

“You’re scared of me,” he whispered, more to himself than to her.

The Elder spoke.
It is because you were a much darker person in the past. She must know that now. Use it to your advantage here.

“N—no, I’m not.” She took a step forward.

He closed his eyes. The image of his dark twin faded back into his memory. If he was that person once, then maybe he could be that way again. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. They were distant. Cold. Emotionless. He felt just like his twin. Deadly. The power of life and death in his hands. He knew his expression matched the one his twin wore the first time they met.

“Yes,” he said. “You are.”

He struck again at the transparent wall that had captured him. This time it shattered, fragments of the energy barrier falling to the ground, clattering around the room and shattering the glass vials that lined the shelves. Dark liquids spilled onto the floor.

Sara jumped back even farther, crashing into the table behind her. She fell to the ground, landing on her bottom. The table itself splintered into pieces. Her gazed locked on Sebastian, her still midnight blue eyes filled with fear.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.

He
blinked
forward, reappearing inches from her face, squatting down. “I’m onto you now. If you so much as lay one hand on Hope, I will hunt you down. I will find you. I will kill you. There is nowhere you can hide from me, do you understand? I will look into every haunt, tear them all apart just to get my hands on you. If you touch one hair on her head.”

“You—you’re lying.” Her voice came out raspy. “If you were going to kill me, you’d do it now. You don’t have the guts.”

He came even closer, pushing a strand of wayward hair behind her ear. “You would be surprised about the things I have done these past couple of days. Twenty minutes ago, I was about to murder my best friend. And I actually like him. Imagine the things I’m thinking about doing to you.”

He brushed her cheek softly with the back of his fingers.

“One hair,” he repeated. “If I were you, I would run. Run fast and don’t look back. I won’t stop with you either. If Hope so much as gets a hangnail, I’m coming after you first. And your masters will be next.”

Sebastian stood tall and reared back his scythe to strike.

“Oh, hell. Why wait?” he said. All of the candles went out, engulfing the room in complete darkness. His Reaper vision still functioned, though, giving him perfect sight. The moment the light was snuffed out, she disappeared. Somehow he’d missed her escape, but it didn’t matter. His point had gotten across.

Nice bluff. You even had me going there for a minute.

“
Thanks.”

I’m still tracking her, but I don’t know for how much longer. Do you wish to proceed?

“No,” Sebastian answered. “I have a promise to keep.”

Sebastian promised her he would take care of things, but Hope couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. It had been three days since Jared had gone missing.

She knew he wasn’t at any of the hospitals or emergency centers. She had already called them all. She had even resorted to calling the local and county jails. She wouldn’t put it past Jared to get into a scrape with the police. He was a loose cannon at the best of times. But the jails had no record of him. She tried not to imagine him dead, lying in a ditch somewhere. So far she had managed to push that image to the edges of her mind, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep those horrible thoughts at bay.

As she sat at the kitchen table biting her nails and toying with a book she was supposed to be reading for school, she heard the front door open. Her father wouldn’t be home for several hours. Her breath hitched in her throat as she leapt off the chair and rushed out of the kitchen, a range of emotions roiling inside her. Anger, worry, hate, concern, apprehension.

“Jared?” she called out.

He stood in front of the open door and glanced at her, a half-smile on his face. He appeared perfectly fine, only the wear of fatigue on him. His muscle shirt was frayed and dirty, as though he’d been in a fight. Of course, he had, what other explanation was there?

“I’m home,” he said casually.

The mixture of emotions running through her cascaded into a waterfall of anger. She was beyond livid. She was totally pissed off.

“Where in the hell have you been?” she demanded, striding toward him. She registered the shocked look on his face, which upset her even more. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”

She balled up her fist, drew back, and punched him in the center of his face as hard as she could.

Jared staggered back and brought his hand up to his face. “Hope! What are you doing?”

He took his hand away from his face and inspected it for blood. Just a trickle.

“Three damn days, Jared,” she yelled, pushing him in the chest so he was forced to step back over the door’s threshold onto the front porch. She followed him outside, not caring whether the neighbors heard her or not. “I’m your sister, do you understand me? I don’t care where you are. You call me! Even if it’s Hell, you find a damn phone!”

Tears stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. Not until he got a piece of her mind. And more of her fists. She drew back her hand again, eager to turn that trickle of blood into a gushing river, when Jared wrapped his arm around her head and brought in her for a tight embrace, burying her face in his chest. Her arms flew around his back and tightened.

“I—I’m sorry,” he whispered to her as her body began to heave with sobs. “I was stupid. I’ll never do that to you again.”

He rubbed her back, feeling her soft shudders. He rested his chin on her hair and held her, relishing the familiar warmth of his sister, of the only constant in his life. He realized, as he held her in his arms that he’d almost lost her, almost been lost to her.

“You scared me,” she said through the tears.

A lump formed in his throat and his eyes welled with tears. They rocked back and forth together, their tears mixing, silently promising never to go through that experience again.

On a rooftop across the street, a dark figure watched the siblings embrace, a satisfied smile on his face. At one point, he’d thought he’d seen Hope’s gaze lock on him, but that had to be his imagination. The Elder masked his presence. He was invisible to the land of the living.

He gazed at Jared and Hope with something like envy, but also with satisfaction. He had fulfilled his promise to one of his best friends and that was all that mattered.

He looked down at his gloved hands, at the robes billowing around him as if they possessed a life of their own, and, of course, they did. He breathed in deeply and felt the power that had become so familiar to him course through his veins.

He wanted to stay for longer, to watch his friends, maybe even to join them, to hang out together as they always had. But he had changed. His life had changed. The Seals would be coming for their seventh member, for the final piece in their puzzle, and the Reaper promised himself he would be ready.

He nodded.

This was his life.

This was his Dark Destiny. . .

Why did Death warn Cole about not having children? What is so important about Cole’s daughter that he is willing to betray Sebastian in the process? Find out in the next installment of the series . . . Dark Days.

About the Author

Thomas Grave stepped straight off his yacht in a crisp, pink Ralph Lauren polo, pressed khakis (no pleats), and a pair of Sperry Topsiders that gleamed in the bright sun. He’d paid $12 for that shine. Surveying the treeline, he slid the Ray Bans down his nose, leaving them just at the bridge. He said, "I'm going to write a book about Death today." After sliding the Ray Bans back up, he nodded once, turned around, walked back up the ramp onto his luxury yacht, down the steps into his leather and mahogany study, and got to work.