“Thank you,” She whispered against my mouth when she came back to herself and realized we were standing in front of a shocked crowd.
“I’m not sure what I did, but you’re welcome,” I answered, my brain a bit fuzzy as the blood in my body worked to get back up there.
“Why are you all just standing around here?” I barked when I turned to face everyone else. I wasn’t nearly as impatient as I was pretending to be but I did not appreciate the looks of complete disbelief. Was it so hard to believe that I could get a girl to kiss me? “I’m anxious to get up there, let’s go.” Though I was happy to see Sebastian sufficiently shut up. He glared at me with a little less resigned anger and gave his sister an apologetic smile before turning to find his seat.
Everyone filed into the vans on my command although nobody had too much to say. We were tense and on edge as the buses left the city and started the slow winding journey up into the mountains. Gabriel drove the lead van and Jericho, driving the van I was in, struggled to keep up with him even with his magic completely in the driver’s seat.
Peruvian driving was definitely different than any other kind of driving and what Jericho knew and understood. So while Gabriel navigated the sharp turns and tight spaces, weaving in and out of slower, less aggressive drivers, Jericho’s expression kept hardening and his vocabulary kept dissolving into worse and worse curse words.
I took Amelia’s hand and enjoyed the show.
Several hours later we pulled onto the narrow side street in front of Gabriel’s parish. There wasn’t much of a church left to begin with, but it was Gabriel’s and I understood his protective nature.
Gabriel was my parents’ age. He had been a part of the select group of students chosen to study with Lucan in Romania. He witnessed the decline of Lucan’s moral compass, the murder of an Immortal and a human for being in love and then what happened after my parents left the Citadel. Even though he kept his past mostly to himself, I knew that it was those events that made him decide to leave the Immortal community and make a life in the human world.
Unfortunately, the human world was terrified of him. I mean, you couldn’t really blame them with his fiery eyes and no-nonsense way about him. Seriously, I could hardly imagine what a church service would be like under his scrutinizing eye. I felt like he would be able to get people to confess to all kinds of sins and misdeeds just by looking at them and raising an eyebrow.
Still his church had several nuns that were assigned to him by a higher Catholic council. And it was those employees he was most concerned about now.
I kept Amelia close to my side, gripping tightly to her hand. We were the first to follow Gabriel through the church doors where he paused to move his hands reverently in the sign of the cross. I had been here once before, but it was a while ago, before I even met Eden. Amory had brought me here to introduce me to Gabriel and explain his renewed efforts in the Resistance. Even though Gabriel had born a mark of the Resistance from an earlier time he had refused Amory at that time, saying he couldn’t leave his parish.
The sanctuary hadn’t been in the greatest shape back then.
Now…. it was worse. Much, much worse.
Pews and kneeling benches were upturned and seemed to have been tossed or thrown across the room during the course of some kind of scuffle. The statue of Jesus that stood above the pulpit was knocked over and one of the outstretched arms broken off, making the painted blood that dripped from the crown of thorns seem disconcertingly authentic. The door to the back was blocked by the crumbling structure of the back wall and there was a smell…. a burning flesh kind of smell that sent prickles of heat rising all over my skin.
“Gabriel?” I asked in a low voice, hoping he would have an explanation. “You talked to your nuns?”
“Days ago,” Gabriel growled. His orange eyes flashed ultra-bright behind his aviators and he rubbed his hand over his shaved head.
The rest of our entourage filed in behind us and I heard the audible gasp from Roxie. The small sanctuary was quickly filled with our large number of people and I heard one of the older Titans ask what this place was. I remembered then, that because of some weird moment in history when Gabriel saved Lucan’s life, Lucan had let Gabriel leave without incident. And in an even weirder uncharacteristic move, Lucan had apparently let him be over all this time.
Well until he joined the Resistance with Eden.
“Gabriel, we must go to the back,” Silas commanded sternly in his Jamaican accent. He tilted his head toward the room that was almost completely obscured by debris and gave his friend an encouraging nod.
“Stay with your brother,” I whispered to Amelia, hoping whatever was between them before was long gone. “I’ll be back in three minutes.” And then to everyone else, “Everyone hang here for a minute, Gabriel, Silas, Jericho and I are going to check out the back.” I nodded to Jericho and he immediately followed.
We made our way through the debris, Gabriel shifting everything out of the way with his magic. We filed through the arched doorway and walked past confessionals that had been smashed to pieces and beyond a small kitchen type room. There was a short, narrow hallway with doors on either side. I assumed those were the living quarters and followed Gabriel’s lead as he knocked harshly on each door before opening them to investigate the inside.
There were no people here, which was upsetting, but I was at least given hope with the fact that there weren’t any dead bodies either. For that I could breathe a sigh of short-lived relief.
“This is my room,” Gabriel announced solemnly when we approached the last of the small bedrooms.
He pushed open a heavy wooden door that had been abused and hung limply off its hinges. Inside the dark room was a single bed, a nightstand and a lamp. Gabriel didn’t seem as pacified as I had been with the lack of bodies. In fact, he seemed more on edge than ever. He surveyed the room carefully before turning on the bedside lamp and shedding light onto the room.
All of our eyes fell to the same place at once. On the wall, across from the doorway, written in what looked like blood was a note.
A note meant for me.
How long will this Kingdom remain faithful to a King that
cannot protect them? Let’s find out.
A guttural, feral growl ripped from my lungs and the bed was up, tangled in my magic and thrown against the bloodied wall before I could feel sanity again. And when instead of calm reason, I felt the hopeless depths of frustration my outburst was followed by a string of curse words that couldn’t even begin to describe the anger bubbling up inside of me.
Gabriel stumbled back against the cold cement blocked wall and slid to the floor, his caramel colored hands covering his face in despair.
“Who else was here, Gabriel? Were there other Immortals that could have been here? Besides your human nuns?” Jericho asked in a measured tone. I wanted to believe he was in control of his emotions, but one look at his brewing expression and the fury heating his gaze convinced me he was only holding it together long enough to make the next step in our plan…. only long enough until he could channel all of his anger into fighting, until he could find retribution.
“No, there were none. Only humans,” Gabriel answered gruffly.
“My people,” Silas whispered in terrified realization.
“Your colony has been hidden for centuries,” I reasoned, but the thick blanket of fear settled on me, and suddenly I felt like I was suffocating beneath it.
“We have not been careful since Lucan died,” Silas’s accent was thicker than usual and his voice barely rose above a whisper. “I have not been back to….” he trailed off and I was as afraid of his next words as he was to say them. “I have not been back since your coronation.”
“How many days do they have ahead of us?” I demanded of Jericho.
“Four,” he answered, fear now mingling with his rage.
“That’s enough,” Silas growled.
“No, it’s not,” I reasoned, forcing myself into confidence. “They would still have to hunt. And your people are capable. More than capable. What’s their contingency plan? Where would you go if…. Where would they have gone if Lucan found you?”
“The city of kings,” Silas answered, his gray eyes sparking with determination.
“Get in the vans, we’re going to Machu Pichu,” I commanded before turning on my heel and leaving the sadness of Gabriel’s church behind. There were no dead bodies, there was hope.
When I was alone in the hallway I paused, taking in deep, cleansing breaths.
It was there. Faint, but calling. The magic was there in the distance. Machu Pichu would have answers.
And if not answers, then a fight.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I pulled Amelia close to me once we were in the van. I wrapped my arms around her waist and I buried my face in her hair. I inhaled her sweet scent, and memorized the feel of her touching me.
Jericho started our van and we were off, flying through the narrow mountain roads with the tall, majestic Andes rising on every side of us. The sun was setting over the mountain peaks, blocking out the sunset completely. Soon we would be shrouded in darkness, perfect for a fight if that’s what it came to.
“I shouldn’t have convinced you to come,” I whispered to Amelia and then placed a kiss on the nape of her neck. I let my lips linger on her skin, relishing the taste of her flesh. “It’s too dangerous. I was an idiot.”
Amelia shivered underneath me, convincing me I needed to pull her even closer. But she turned in her seat and lifted her hands to my face. Her eyes were golden pools of warmth and affection.
“No, I’m glad I came. I wouldn’t be able to…. I would hate not knowing how much danger you were in, or when I would hear from you again.” She paused and kissed me sweetly on the lips. “I’m a good fighter Avalon. I’m more than capable to hold my own. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“That’s not possible,” My voice was suddenly gruff with emotion. “I trust you, of course I do. But I can’t not worry about you.” I turned in my seat to face Sebastian. He was staring at me not even trying to disguise his distrustful hatred of me. At this moment, with danger and uncertainty looming before us, I didn’t blame him. But I couldn’t give him an excuse so I gave him an order instead, “Sebastian, your only job when we get there is to protect Amelia. I don’t want her anywhere near me where she could be identified as something I care about. They cannot know she is a weakness, Ok?” She started to protest so I amended my order to cater to her feminist ways, “I’m not saying I don’t want you to fight. We need everyone we can. These people are ruthless. Hell, they kill their own people to protect their secrets. But Sebastian you are not to let anything happen to Amelia. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Sebastian bit out. “I’m not happy you let her come Avalon, but thank you for keeping your distance.”
“Why? Why do you have to stay away from me?” Amelia demanded, her cheeks flushed with anger. She looked so sexy with her eyes narrowed on me and her arms folded in defiance I had to stomp down the urge to lay her down on the bench seat and pass the time to Machu Picchu in a more entertaining way…. “I want to be with you! What if something happens to you! What then?”