“I am here because you called for me,” I said, pushing my hair behind my ear. “And you know what I've come for.”
As one, the sentries stuck their staffs into the ground, purple light shot off from their staffs and arced into the air landing behind me. Energy stung and sizzled around my flesh.
Guess we were going to have to do this the hard way. I had been hoping for that.
18
The persistent sound of rhythmic beeping woke me. I began to shift to sit up, but pain shot through my abdomen sending a sharp nausea through me. I stilled.
“Oh thank god,” I heard my mother say. Regina was suddenly there at my side. I was in a hospital room and Regina sat in a chair next to my bed. The world seemed drained of color, and though my mother was here I wondered if I had died.
Phillip walked in. He looked relieved when he saw me, but his face was haggard. Normally my parents were well put together, almost manicured with their fastidiousness, but they both looked rumpled and exhausted.
“What happened?” My mother asked, clutching my hand in her thin ones.
“Regina, he just gained consciousness. Give him a minute,” my father said. There was a sharpness in the air between them that had me wondering if they had been fighting about something before I gained consciousness.
“Emma,” I said, the word ended in a cough making my abdomen and ribs catch fire. The pain was intense, and my coughing instantly drained any energy I’d regained. Regina handed me a paper cup of water. It cooled my throat, but nothing could stop the pain inside of me, not even the pain medication flowing into my vein that made my head fuzzy.
“We know son,” Phillip said, curling his fingers around the end of the bed. “She’s gone. It’s been almost two days, and there’s no trace of her or whatever took her.”
“Emma stabbed me,” I said, my voice was rasped but the words came out.
They both straightened. Regina sent Phillip a look. “You’re right, he needs time to rest. He’s not thinking clearly. Go ask if the nurse could give him some more sedative.”
“No,” I said forcibly, pain shooting through me again like fire. “I found a body drained of her blood in our closet. When I told Emma, she...” I searched my memory trying to see it for anything else than what it was. “She stabbed me.”
Phillip and Regina looked at me and then each other. “It was Othanos’s knife in his gut,” Phillip said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina said. “A woman doesn’t shank her husband on their wedding night. Well, Emma wouldn’t in any case.” Then turning toward me, she shook her head. “There was no body or trace of any blood in your closet.”
“How did you find me?” My words were thin and reedy as the pain and exhaustion threatened to drag me back into the darkness.
Phillip had his hands in his pockets, but his arms were rigid. “Your little demon bird got loose and flew home. Managed to get through a gap in an open window, so when Travis arrived he found the bird having a fit over your body because there was no one to feed him.” Jerking his chin to the door, Phillip added, “We sent Travis home. Both he and Krystan tried to insist they would stay here until you woke up, but they need to be with their newborn. We promised not to leave you.” His phone buzzed in his pocket. With a glance at the screen, he stepped out into the hall to take the call.
My mother’s hands squeezed around my limp one.
Closing my eyes, the agony of the reality washed over me again and again. “Something’s wrong with her. Before Emma ran me through, I sensed darkness in her. The only other time I'd ever felt that darkness was when we were in the Stygian. Something has been inside of her. It’s been cloaking itself, staying hidden.” Whatever evil had been there was under my nose for gods only knew how long, and now it was done playing hide and seek.
Phillip entered the room again, looking ten years older. “She’s taken the book from the Spiritus. She would have wiped out all of the Order if one of their most powerful seers had not had a vision a mere ten minutes before. They were able to evacuate most of their people, but she went through their fighters as if they were nothing and took the book of their Order.”
“Phillip,” Regina’s word snapped in warning.
His mouth clicked shut.
My mother’s hands tightened around mine. “You need to rest,” she said in her firm, commanding voice that brooked no argument. Then she got up mentioning I needed more sedative to rest.
Phillip stared at me with blues eyes that matched my own. “We will find her.”
I turned to look out at the bright cloud covered sky through the window. “I don’t think she wants to be found.”
* * *
The room wasdark except for light cutting down from the high windows nearing the top of the dome. Chairs surrounded an oversized round wood table, accommodating twenty people.
Leonidas crossed his burly arms by the wall. My Chevalier brother had used portals to transport everyone to the secret meeting spot, including myself, though I could have done it myself. We could have been anywhere on Earth, but judging by the ornate stonework of the interior, I’d guess we were somewhere in Italy.
The shuffling of chairs and tense whispers added to the air of seriousness in the room.
