Dark One: One for Sorrow... (The Khiara Banning Series Book 1) (32 page)

The revolting sound of her skull hitting the concrete floor reverberates throughout the warehouse. Douma signals the other angel to hold her down, and he complies. In that moment, I realize something. Douma isn’t watching me, and he isn’t watching Cara; and my necklace is dangling from the back pocket of his minion’s blue jeans. Its power suddenly hits me like a punch in the gut, and I wonder why I didn’t recognize it sooner.

Before I can totally think my plan through, I make the universal sign of
shh
to Cara (who frowns with all the energy she can muster, and then makes the universal slit throat sign for
I will kill you
) and tiptoe towards the angel as quietly as I can. I can feel Cara’s eyes on my back, burning my skin.

The angel’s back pocket is facing me and I am so, so,
so
close and –
yes
.

I’m able to grab it!

I hastily stuff the necklace in my bra, but as I make it halfway back to Cara I trip and fall onto the hard floor. I can’t stop the yelp that escapes me as my chin gets scraped, and just like that, everybody’s attention is on me.

“Jonah, kill everybody except
her
,” says Douma, pointing to me. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I must be going. Deliver Khiara to me when you’re done here. I have a body upstairs to clean up and dispose of.”

He walks over to me and painfully grabs me by the wrist, then drags me over to Cara, who appears to be growing weak from the blood loss.

He grins, showing his teeth. “Say your goodbyes now. Looks like Cara won’t make it, I’m afraid. Sad since it’s just a broken bone. Poor little Faen-Halfling. You’ll return to the Fire. I promise it’ll be over soon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” whispers Cara. “Don’t you have a body to get rid of?”

Douma pats her on the head like a puppy. “Quite right,” he says, and walks towards the stairs, but then turns back around to look at me.

“I’m going to destroy your necklace,” he announces.

“I’ve got it right here in my pocket.” He pats his pocket proudly. “And you’re going to help me destroy it.”

The necklace is practically singeing my skin with the heat that it’s radiating, and it takes everything I have not to smile like an idiot.

“No, I won’t. I will never help you.”

He turns away again, and over his shoulder he says, “You will, Ms. Banning. You’ll see.”

“No,” I mutter under my breath as he disappears into the stairwell. “
You’ll
see.”

I turn away from the empty space he just occupied, to see Jonah still pinning Vicky down with only his foot. Her eyes meet mine, and I nod once, and smile slightly.

Her eyes light up, and so subtly it could be missed she nods her head as well.

“First, I’m going to rip your friend here apart. And then I’ll get to you two.” Says Jonah.

“Go fuck yourself,” snarls Vicky, with every ounce of venom she has. Jonah lifts his foot, and reaches down, and pulls Vicky to her feet, and then punches her in the stomach, making her curl into herself.

“Do it again, a little harder, I didn’t quite feel it.”  She rasps.

He punches her in the jaw, and a revolting cracking noise comes from her teeth being broken, and she falls to the floor again. She spits out some blood and a couple of teeth and smiles, “I can do thith all day. They’ll jutht grow back. In fact…they’re already healing as we thspeak.”

This really angers him and he begins wailing on her, turning his complete attention on her. That’s when I understand what she’s doing; creating a diversion.

“Cara,” I whisper, “I need you to-” but she’s already pulled out what appears to be a knife from her pocket and she looks like she feels much better than she just did moments ago. She probably healed herself as much as she could manage.

“I’ve got this covered,” she whispers back.

She runs right towards him before I can stop her.

Thrusting the weapon into Jonah’s neck Cara yells, “The pen is mightier than the sword, bitch!”

“What the fuck?” Says Jonah, before letting go of Vicky and falling to the ground with a scream, and I see that the weapon isn’t a knife at all – it really
is
a pen, though it’s red hot from Cara’s Fire magic, which is spreading all over his body, lighting up his veins like the fourth of July, making him writhe in pain, unable to do anything else.

“I don’t think that’s what the librarian meant, Cara…” I say as we help Vicky to her feet while she mutters something along the lines of, “Yeah, but at least she stunned him.”

“I have issues, what can I say?” says Cara as she laughs nervously and sniffs the air which smells like burning flesh.

When we reach the dumpsters where she stabbed the guard, who’s still lying there, not healed, Cara asks, “Jonah’s not dead is he? I didn’t kill him?”

“You can’t kill us. You can beat the shit out of us, but kill us? Naw, we only die when it’s another angel at the hilt of a sword, and it has to be a fatal blow or else we’ll heal.” Vicky says. “The guard will heal, but he’s Nephilim so it’ll take him longer.”

“Ah, yes,” I mumble. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

But Vicky doesn’t move. “No!” she growls. “You guys go without me. I need to get to Douma. I need to make him pay.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” says Cara. “We need to get to the car and get the fuck out of here.”

“No!” Shouts Vicky. She’s visibly shaking, and there’s blood covering her jaw, matted in her hair, and along her arms.

“Not right now,” says a small voice from behind us. I turn and realize that it’s… Sam?

Has he been hiding all this time?

“If you want to make him pay, do it during the Battle. But right now we gotsta go.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” says Cara as Vicky says, “What do you know about my pain,
boy
?” 

Sam walks up to us and stands before me, lifting his chubby arms up over his head, “Got in from the trunk. I’m tired.”  I pick him up out of instinct, and he wraps his arms around me, and then cradles his head in the crook of my neck, his curly blonde locks soft against my skin. He shivers a bit, and I realize how cold it’s become.

“I know a lot, Aunty V,” he says. “It’s not my fault.”

The hard lines of Vicky’s face soften up a bit as Sam turns his big green eyed gaze directly towards her. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice quivering. “It’s not my fault. I just wanted to come in case you guys’s needed me.”

“I know it’s not, kid.” She says to him. “Let’s get you home. You shouldn’t have followed us. It must have taken some strong magic to get into the trunk. You shouldn’t be doing stuff like that.” Vicky turns to walk away, but then stops walking.

“Tinkerbell,” she says tiredly; she’s still not fully healed.

“You’re talking to me, I assume,” Cara shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Sam shivers some more in my arms. I suppress a sudden cough working its way into my throat.

“Take the kid. He’s cold and you’re warm. Plus Khiara’s been pretty sick recently herself and we kind of need her to not, you know, die.”

Normally Cara would have muttered something under her breath about not being a portable heater; I can tell she even thought about saying something. But instead, she wordlessly reaches out for Sam with her good arm.

“Come here, little guy,” she says as I hand the sleepy boy over. She makes her way over to the car, cooing sweet nothings to Sam as they walk.

“We have to get to the car. Douma will know what happened in a minute; he’s probably already on his way to find us.” I say to Vicky.

She looks as if she wants to throttle me, but she sighs and jogs towards the car. I’ve won this round.

And, of course, my necklace.

Twenty-Seven

“My word,” breathes Grandma Coal as she takes in the state of Cara’s wrist, my chin, and the blood all over Vicky. Sam is holding fast to Cara’s hand, refusing to let go.

She exhales a sigh, and rolls her eyes at us, a forced smirk on her weathered face. “You’d better come in, then” she says, moving out of the doorway. “You’ll do some better explaining if you’re not cold.”

She ushers us in, one after the other, giving Vicky an especially quizzical look.

“And who is this?” she asks, after we’re all inside, awkwardly standing by the front door.

“Verchiel,” says Vicky. “Angel of Affection, though Fallen. I’m called Vicky though, by friends. You can call me whatever you like. I haven’t met a member of the Spirit Clann in a very long time. And this is Sam. He’s a friend of my family.”

Grandma Coal blinks for a second or two and then nods her head. “Right then, nice to meet you two.”

“Grandma Coal, I’m sorry we didn’t call you before coming. I normally would have, but the situation is…well…” Cara struggles to find the right words, and Sam blinks at her wordlessly, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on before letting go of her hand and quickly grabbing mine.

The old woman smiles kindly and wraps her arms around her granddaughter. “Come now, child. You act like I’m upset. What would your father think?”

“He’d probably have some choice words,” says Cara wistfully. “And then he’d make some rhubarb pie, even though it’s winter and he could never explain to Mom where he’d bought it.”

“I have some,” says Grandma Coal. “But first, Vicky, the shower is on the top floor. I assume you can find your way there. I need to heal these two.”

“Yeah,” Vicky shrugs and heads off in the direction of the bathroom.

“Okay,” says Grandma Cole, looking between Cara and myself. “Cara, give me your arm.”

Cara complies, but frowns. “Will it still be broken? I tried to heal it, but I’m kind of bad at this whole healing thing since it’s not my element.”

“It won’t be broken. But it will be sprained pretty badly, I’m afraid. It should heal within the week though, if you keep healing it in small bursts.”

She closes her eyes and inhales a deep breath of air. Her black hair, which is grey at the temples, begins to take on a strange vibrant sheen, almost as if it’s actually shining, and then as she blows the air out it turns completely white as her magic flows into Cara’s arm, stitching together what’s been broken.

“Wow,” whispers Sam.

Cara’s veins seem to turn black while everything heals until the magic flows back into her grandmother, turning her hair black once again, and Cara’s veins return to their normal light blue and green. Her wrist is still swollen, but the bone isn’t sticking out at that disgusting angle anymore.

“Righty then,” says Grandma Coal, turning to me once Cara’s sighed from the pain being lifted, and looks visibly relieved. “I think I can take care of the nasty scrape in a jiffy.”