Dark One: One for Sorrow... (The Khiara Banning Series Book 1) (33 page)

She puts her warm hands on my chin and takes a big breath, and then does the same thing for me as she did for her granddaughter. This wonderful tickling sensation flows through me, and I realize with a start that it’s her magic. It feels almost
playful.

“Holy crap,” I say when she’s finished. “That was amazing.”

“I tend to be amazing,” she replies. “Now, let’s see about getting you that rhubarb pie while you wait for your turns in the shower. And,” she turns to little Sam, “I think you’d like some hot chocolate, hmm?”

“Yes please,” says Sam. “I’ve never met a Spirit Fae before,” he says conversationally.

Grandma Coal laughs at this. “Well I’ve never met anybody quite like you, Sam. You’ll have to excuse me for any rudeness if I happen to ask later, what race it is exactly that you are.”

“I don’t mind.” He says, reaching out to take her outstretched hand. “I think you’re nice.”

“Well I can be,” she says, chuckling.

Two hours later, scrubbed clean and our bellies full – especially Sam – we’re sitting in the small living room with cups of tea in our hands after having explained literally everything that has happened to lead us to this point, when my phone rings.

I’d forgotten that I had it since it died on the way here, but Grandma Coal had an extra phone charger.

“Hello?” I answer on the second ring.

I already know who it is, but the sound of his panicked voice is enough to make me feel so,
so
guilty.

“Khiara! Are you hurt? Where did Vicky take you guys?”

“I’m not hurt,” it isn’t technically a lie, but it tastes dirty in my mouth and he makes an irritated sound at the back of his throat. “Okay,” I say. “I
was
hurt. I’m okay now.”

“Where are you?” he repeats. “What happened?”

“I’m at Cara’s grandmother’s place. She’s a healer, remember?”

“Up near Portland? That’s
hours
away! Oh my God, you didn’t,” he pauses, “you went to get your necklace didn’t you?”

I’m silent.

“Don’t try to tell me this was your plan because it reeks of Verchiel,” the use of her angelic name makes me realize how worried he’d been.

“You disappeared from school Khiara; your parents are worried sick about you! They showed up at my apartment. So I called my sister, right? And what does she tell me? You’ve driven off with Cara and Verchiel and apparently
Sam
, to God knows where to do God knows what, and when we all try to reach one of you, your phones are conveniently turned off!”

“I got it, Cael.”

“I don’t think you do, love. You’re going to give me an aneurism and once it heals, ten more.”

“No,” I say, slightly annoyed now. “I have the necklace. We got it.”

Silence is the sometimes the loudest sound when you’re waiting for somebody to say something.

“You have it,” he whispers. And then louder, “You have it!”

A thump comes from the other side of the phone and I realize it’s because Cael’s dropped the phone, fallen, or both, and I can hear him swear loudly.

“Sorry,” he says breathlessly. “I got so excited that I fell off of the bed and dropped the phone. You really got it?”

“We do,” I laugh.

“And we kicked some ass!” shouts Vicky from beside me, loud enough so that Cael can hear her, bumping into my shoulder with hers triumphantly.

Cael sighs, but not unhappily. “Can I talk to Vicky?”

“That depends. Are you gonna yell at her?” I don’t want her to get in trouble for this.

He shifts positions and I hear his bed creak. “Khiaraaa.”

“Caaael,” I counter, making him chuckle.

I can just see him running his hand through his hair and I can hear smile when he says, “I can’t promise you that I’m not going to yell at her at all, but
maybe
not over the phone. Can I talk to her now?”

I pass the phone to Vicky wordlessly, and she ruffles my hair.

“Yo,” she says, answering the phone. “I hear I’m in potential trouble for saving your girl’s ass?”

Vicky’s silent while Cael says something, and then she laughs out loud. “I’d like to see you try, lover boy. But seriously, stop worrying. You’re not her Guardian anymore. Just her boyfriend. And as such, protecting her is something you have to share with the rest of the people who love her.”

A pause as Cael speaks.

Vicky frowns. “Well…yes.”

Another pause.

“Now I have been your partner in crime for literally as long as this child has been alive. Is that any way to speak to me? Christ, you may have been appointed as her Guardian, but I have had my fair share of keeping her alive these past seventeen years. Remember when she broke her wrist falling off of her bike and you were halfway across the town?”

“What?” Cara and I say at the same time, but Vicky waves it away, leaving Cara and I to stare at each other in confusion.

After five minutes of silence on her part, clearly Vicky has won this argument, because she fist pumps, after Cael is done speaking. “You’re damned right. See you tomorrow.”

She hangs up the phone then, and grins at me. “I’ve been a part of your life for a long time, kid. I was the one who called the ambulance when you broke your wrist that day. Lover boy was supposed to keep a low profile, and being that we’re not able to become invisible, it was hard for him to keep track of you every hour of every day like he could’ve in Heaven. It was a good thing I was scoping out the town for him that day.”

“Oh!” says Cara, nodding her head enthusiastically. “I remember! You had such an attitude…”

Vicky laughs. “I still have it, thanks. But whenever I encountered you, I had to make sure that I didn’t paint myself in a fantastic light. I was supposed to show up in your memory as a random stranger, not some kind lady that you would think back on. And then last year when Douma decided that his best bet for getting to Khiara was enrolling in your damned school, I was still leading him to believe that I was Unrepentant, so of course I had to pretend to hate you.”

She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “The things you do for friends, am I right?”

Grandma Coal, who I forgot was listening this whole time, chuckles and says, “Indeed. Now, let’s get the sleeping arrangements set up, shall we?”

Twenty-Eight

My combat training has officially ended; there is nothing more I can do, besides fight hand-to-hand, seeing as I’m only human. But I’m a pretty good fighter now, and can even take out Liam if I try hard enough.

I’m not in a fighting kind of mood right now, though. Mom has made a special dinner and insisted I call everybody to join us for it, so the dining room is currently filled to the brim; we actually had to get extra chairs from the attic.

Now that my training is over, we have to think about the Battle. Cara’s grandmother has put in calls to many of the Faen, who in turn have put out calls of their own; One hundred Pixies, Nymphs, and Elves in total – as it turns out, there are only about a million left world-wide, and only about a thousand of them want anything to do with human affairs and whatnot – from around the world are on call, waiting to battle. About forty are able to actually make their way to Maine at the drop of a hat, and we are expecting them sometime soon. The rest will come as fast as they can, after next week.

I’ve just come back into the room, having been tasked to get another bottle of juice from the fridge, and I’m standing in the doorway, taking everything in.

“So Lisa,” Dad, who is sitting across the table from Lisa, Samael, and Vicky, is saying through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “How is French class coming along now that you’re getting Khiara’s help?”

“Great,” she says, as bubbly as ever, spearing a single pea with her fork too hard, making it fly off her plate and onto Tristan’s. He reacts only by picking it up and popping it into his mouth with a cheeky grin.

Samael rolls her blue eyes at the scene and lovingly places her hand on her daughter’s head. “She’s been passing with flying colours thanks to your daughter.”

Dad beams, as if he’s been given the biggest compliment; which I suppose as a parent he has. “Yes, she’s a smart girl. Takes after her old man.”

Mom rolls her eyes from next to him. “Okay, sweetheart. You keep telling yourself that.”

Dad mock frowns and says, “Ferme ta bouche, Madame!” and then kisses her on the cheek, pulls back, then winks at her, earning him a loving swat on the arm from her.

I walk into the room and place the bottle of grape juice on the table, then take my seat next to Mom and Cael.

“So,” I say to Cael, digging into my dinner. “I’ve been thinking we should go on a date. We’ve only had the one.”

Cael smiles and reaches over to grab some more mashes potatoes. “Aye, I think that’s a good idea. What do you want to do?”

I think about it for a minute, stuffing my face with bread, chicken, green beans and potatoes, and then an idea forms in my mind. “I think we should take a drive somewhere. Go wherever the road takes us.”

His smile turns into a full out grin. “I like that idea. When do you want to do this? I’m down for whatever day and time you want.”

“Tomorrow? I can maybe stay over and we can go from your place?” I can’t disguise the excitement in my voice.

Cael nods and takes a large bite of bread. Through his mouthful he says, “Sounds like a plan!” and I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of me.

“Young love,” says Jack from the head of the table. “There’s nothing like it, is there?”

From Liam’s lap Sam shakes his head and crows, “Nope!”

I have never had a big family; it’s always been Mom, Dad, and me, and of course Cara. Dad’s family is all in France and they want nothing to do with him, and Mom’s adoptive parents passed away.

I have an aunt on her side, but I’ve only met her once and she wasn’t very nice and her son – my cousin – was a little brat who tried to cut off my ponytail.

These people, Cael, Vicky, Lisa, Liam, Sam, Samael, Tristan, and even Jack, have become part of my family too, in such a short period of time. I don’t know that I will ever want to meet my blood relatives, the ones who gave me up and damned me to be cursed. They aren’t my family. They lost that privilege when they gave me up.

But right now, at this crowded dinner table, with Humans, Angels, Nephilim, a Nymph and the child of two Fallen Angels – a member of the Rephaim race – I have never felt more like part of a big, important, and loving family.

~*~

Mirrors. They’re everywhere I turn.

I keep walking down this long hallway, but never get to the end…is there an end to this hallway? Everything seems suspended in blackness, this thick black shadowey stuff that encases the entirety of the hall. It feels like I assume space would look like without the light of the stars. I know that there is a floor, kind of, beneath my feet, only because I haven’t fallen into an abyss yet and because the mirrors must be resting on something. I assume that there are walls on either side of me, holding up the mirrors, but I can’t see them. It’s just me and the mirrors in this strange darkness.