Illumine (13 page)

understand, you haven't been around as long as I have." A new coil

of fire wrapped across his cheek and began to scorch the flesh.

"You're a creature created for war. What do you think is going to

happen?"

"Nothing is going to h-"

"I'l tel you what's going to happen. Someone is going to

find out what you are and use you like the weapon you are meant

to be. They're going to drop you in the middle of a war zone and

expect you to clear it without hesitation. Are you prepared to

defend yourself against the masses of demonic creatures intend on

kiling you to save their own skin?"

With a shove I released him from his prison, the fire

pushing him back halfway across the backyard. He colapsed onto

the ground gasping for air, the picture reminding me of a fish out of

water. "Don't you ever bring my Mother into this ever again.

Understand?"

He stood up and examined the cluster of burns and

lacerations covering his body. "Now that's the kind of power I was

talking about," he said while prodding at a deep cut on his forearm.

Slowly he let his arm dissolve into nothing and reappear intact and

unharmed, flexing his fingers for good measure. "Was that so

hard?"

"You're impossible," I muttered and turned back and went

inside before I let loose on Kayden again. Only next time I'd

probably do more than leave him with a couple of cuts and burns.

The next morning I sat in English hunched over my desk,

scribbling violently on a paper. I was starting to feel the drain of my

scribbling violently on a paper. I was starting to feel the drain of my

inconsistent emotional state. Food had lost its appeal and sleep

was something only the dead were capable of achieving.

A polite cough sounded behind me. "That was a pretty

picture, you know."

I turned up and looked to my side. Leo sat on the edge of

my desk with his arms light folded across his chest. Smal strands

of his thick blonde hair hid most of his briliant blue eyes. He

looked past me to the paper strewn across my desk, one of my

eye drawings staring unseeing up at both of us. Smal scribbles

criss-crossed over half of the eye, making it look like the eye was

turning black with disease, violence, or murderous death.

My shoulders rose and fel and I went back to making

more scribbles across the details of the iris. "Yeah, I thought it was

a good picture at one point too. Too bad we're al disilusioned."

His hand reached out gently to take the pencil from my

hand. "There's no ilusion in your art, only exposed truth." With a

swift move he snapped the pencil in half over his knee and placed

both broken pieces on top of my picture. "You look upset.

Everything okay?"

I bit back the sigh I ached to let out, to spil every single

detail of my unforgiving nightmare that I was nothing more than a

blessed dragon in human skin. Since the night of the bonfire Leo

seemed to be everywhere I didn't want him to be. We ran into

each other in the hals, classes, were assigned as project partners,

anywhere I looked he'd be nearby. As if some kind of gravitational

pul kept him in my personal orbit, teasing me with things I couldn't

have. It could have been doable if Ursula wasn't constantly glued

have. It could have been doable if Ursula wasn't constantly glued

to his hip, shooting daggers at me at any given chance.

I stole a quick glance around the room. No sight of her

overly blonde hair. "Shouldn't you be with your precious porcelain

dol?"

His jaw set for a moment before he roled his shoulders

and let out a smal breath. "It's nice to get away from the things that

suffocate you sometimes. But you stil haven't answered my

question."

I gave him a bitter smile. "If I told you what was wrong

you'd cal me crazy."

"Normalcy is overrated." He learned further onto my desk,

closing the distance between us until he was hovering above me.

"You'd be surprised by how many people hide secrets in this

place."

My stomach gave a little rol as I tried to figure out just

what he meant by hiding secrets. Heat came off of his skin in

waves, begging me to come closer. An image of my fingers running

along the skin of his palms, his arms, and up to his neck confused

me. Where the hel was this al coming from?

"I...I..." My words caught in my throat. I tried to form the

sentence I had planned on saying in my head when a sharp, hot

light protruded from my chest. Leo and I immediately looked

down, and just under my navy hoodie I felt the heart pendant my

Mother had given me
move.
I wrapped a hand around it and

stared up at Leo in horror. "Did you see-?"

The door to the classroom opened and our disgruntled

teacher stomped inside with an armful of jackets and scarves.

teacher stomped inside with an armful of jackets and scarves.

"Seats, students! Seats!"

Leo turned back to me for a quick moment. "I'l see you

later."

I nodded and prepared to sit through class with a tight knot

in my gut. What did Leo think he saw? What if he coughed it up to

magic? Wasn't there some sort of law forbidding supernaturals

from displaying magic to humans? There had to be, there always

was in books and movies. It was practicaly the golden freaking

rule.

Yep, I'm screwed.

The second the bel rang I was over at Leo's desk, my

books crammed uncomfortably in my arms. I had to make sure to

talk him out of whatever he saw, just in case.

He glanced up and grinned in amusement. "Eager to

continue where we left of, eh?"

"Something like that."

"Good. Folow me." He shuffled his books into a leather

messenger bag and slipped it onto his shoulder. We walked out

into the halway and breezed past the lockers and office and

headed straight for the parking lot. "Do you trust me?"

I stopped folowing him and looked up in confusion.

"Should I trust you?"

A smal sad laugh escaped his lips. "Probably not, but I'm

the only one who can tel you about what you are. There's more to

Nephilim than that terrible book Ursula has in her
collection,
" he

said the word with repulsion.

"Wait, so you know?"

He nodded.

"And you didn't tel me? I just spent the past 40 minutes

back there thinking I was going to have to decapitate you or

something to keep you quiet about this." I held up the necklace

from under my hoodie.

"A trinket from your Maker, no doubt," Leo said and came

over to inspect the pendant. "I saw it light up but I can't tel you

why. Sometimes it's a demon ward, other times it's for finding your

soul mate."

But it didn't glow around Kayden, that much I was sure of.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts and re-focus on the main

topic. "What do you know about me?"

His eyes danced with mischief and glee, a smirk spreading

across his face. "Maybe everything. Maybe nothing at al. You'l

have to come with me if you want to find out."

"Fine." I was resolved. I had to know more about what I

was, even if it did mean driving off with a guy I barely knew

claiming to know more. Besides, I could always just set the car on

fire let him burn to a crisp if he tried anything funny. Buckled into

our seats I snuck a glance at him out of the corner of my eyes.

"Care to tel me where we're going?"

"Nope. But I'l tel you one thing. Where we're going," he

reversed the car and puled out of the parking lot. "That colection

of Ursula's is a mere prick of blood compared to the ones you'l

soon see."

T W E L V E

"Essalie, wake up."

I jolted awake in my seat and threw my hands out in front

of me automaticaly, the rush of heat in my veins lighting fire on my

hands. We were stil inside of the car, parked outside of a little

indie bookstore in what appeared to be some smal town in the

middle of nowhere.

A silhouette moved next to me. Leo's voice spoke in low

tones in my ear. "Please don't light up my parent's car. They

haven't finished paying it off yet."

Oh, right. My mind replayed the last few hours over to

bring me to speed. Leo knowing I was half-human, the glowing

pendant around my neck, the car ride to a place with tons of

books. Slowly the fire duled to a dim flicker on my fingertips

before extinguishing itself.

I looked up to see the smal neon sign hanging above the

tiny shop in front of us. "You're kidding, right? This place is smaler

than my bedroom."

Leo bit his lip to stiffen a laugh. He looked half crossed to

say something but stopped and pursed his lips. "You'd think a girl

like yourself, the living proof of magic, would put two and two

together."

I opened my mouth to retort but he stepped out of the car

and motioned for me to folow him. Heat blazed through the door

as we stepped inside, and I quickly understood why it was so hot.

as we stepped inside, and I quickly understood why it was so hot.

The shop was cramped and opaque to the point where even light

bulbs made little difference in iluminating anything. Every potential

walking spot was crammed with clusters of books of al shapes

and sizes, the dust thick enough to form thick coating over the skin

like gloves.

Twisting through narrow passageways I did my best to

avoid stepping on anything. "Who the hel owns this place?"

"My family," he answered without looking back. I folowed

him around a tightly wound corner. "It's been here since the '30s

but no one's actualy ran the place since the 70's. We put up wards

to keep the occasional human from stumbling upon it and caling

the township to demolish it."

Wards? I thought back to one of my favorite fantasy

movies where witches casted wards to keep people away from

their secret altar. Which meant if they had wards they were

protecting something, too. "Is there another book in here on my

kind?"

"A book on Nephilim in here? I'd sure as hel hope not.

That'd be one heck of a way to ruin something crafted in sacrificed

blood." He stopped in front of a shelf in what looked like the

furthest corner of the building.

"That book I read was done in blood?" I felt a little

nauseous just from recaling it.

"Al books on Nephilim are. It's to seal in the history so no

one can alter it later or erase it from history. You can't destroy one

of those books once it's been properly sealed. Anyone who tries

dies." He pushed against the shelf uselessly. "Can't remember how

dies." He pushed against the shelf uselessly. "Can't remember how

to open it. Shoot."

I stared past him at the shelf and spotted one book that

looked freshly cleaned of dust. "That one. Pul it." I said, pointing at

the smal blue novel. "That's how they do it in the movies. Secret

bookcase 101."

Leo stared at me, eyebrows arched high into his hair. He

gave the book a light push and the shelf shuddered, swinging inside

to reveal a blaze of white light bright enough to reveal the whole

room. "Anyone ever told you that too much television is bad and

inaccurate?" He ushered me inside and the bookcase softly clicked

shut behind us.

It was as if the world had done a 180 around us, swapping

everything that was once grimy and old for polished and new.

Bookshelves of freshly bound leather and fabric stood neat rows,

the floors clean and polished to perfection. White marble pilars

connected to high golden arches rested between each bookshelf

and held the stained glass ceiling in place.

I couldn't help it; I stared slack-jawed in awe at the pristine

perfection around me. Turning to see Leo's impressed grin I felt a

light bulb dim to life in my head. "Let me guess. This is also your

family's, isn't it?"

"Naturaly," he replied with a wink. He walked down the

halway with ease, breezing past other people with a smal nod here

and a polite smile there while I struggled to keep up with al the

twists and turns. "Impressed?"

"Hardly," I lied as we made another turn and came to a

"Hardly," I lied as we made another turn and came to a

stop in what looked like a grand foyer of some sort. Black marble

lined the floor, six white marbled pilars bigger than the others

holding up an ornately balcony crafted from cast iron and jewels of

various sizes and shapes. It instantly reminded me of the box from