Broken (Book 1, The Watcher Chronicles, Paranormal Romance) (35 page)

“Where is
our shadow?” I ask Chandler as he steps down from the carriage to stand beside me.

Chandler
looks at the next carriage to roll in and says, “I thought he was behind us.”

Before I know it, a man in a black feathered cape appears at
Chandler’s side and grabs his arm before disappearing with him in tow.  It happens so quickly I seem to be the only one who sees it.

I
frantically dig for my phone in my coat pocket to call Mason but someone grabs my wrist and I find myself not in Central Park anymore.

A cool wind blows through my hair as I’m faced with a vast expanse of rolling hills made of sand.  The full moon hanging in the
night sky illuminates not only the desert but also the nightmare creatures standing in front of me.

Three men wearing black feathered capes stand ten feet from
my position.  Chandler is struggling against the firm grip of the Watcher who abducted him in a futile attempt to escape.  I can tell he’s mad, not scared by the situation.  I feel a sense of pride he is able to command such strength considering the dire straits we find ourselves in.

  A few yards to the left of the Watchers are a pack of three nightmarish creatures feasting on what
appears to be the remnants of a human corpse.  The crack of bones, rending of flesh and suckling sounds as they swallow the meat makes me sick to my stomach.  I pity the person who is being devoured whole by the children of the Watchers.

One of the Watchers walks toward me and I instantly recognize him.

“Didn’t Lucifer order you not to harm me?” I ask.

Even in the dim light of
the moon I see the Watcher named Baruch smile.

“I know I’m not allowed to harm you,” Baruch says.  “But he didn’t say anything about the humans you associate with, like this one.”  Baruch tilts his head in
Chandler’s direction.

“Don’t worry about me, Jess,”
Chandler calls out to me.  “Get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving without you,” I promise him.  I look to Baruch.  “Why are you doing this?  I haven’t done anything to you.
  I barely even know you.”

“Mason loves you,” Baruch spits out.  “That’s reason enough.  You can thank him for what I’m about to do to your life.  Everyone you love, everyone you consider
a friend or even an acquaintance, anyone you might remotely have feelings for will suffer the same fate as this boy.  I will make your life a living hell because if you’re miserable, Mason’s miserable.  Lucifer is the only reason I don’t rip your throat out myself and feed you to my boy over there.”

As if knowing his father is talking about him, I see one of the werewolves lift its head from what remains of the corpse and sniff the air in my direction.

“Who is that?” I ask looking pointedly at the body the werewolves are eating, suddenly frightened to learn the answer.

“That boy’s body
guard.  We didn’t want him to draw undo attention to us while we brought you here.  Plus, our children were hungry.  It was as good a meal as any.  And after we feed the boy to them, they should be sated for tonight.”

I feel my blood boil
not with anger but fierce determination.  I vow to myself that Chandler will not suffer such a death.  Deep within my soul I know we will survive this transient moment in time because our destinies aren’t supposed to end like this.

I stand a little straighter as I tell Baruch, “I will kill you.  Let him go and I might let you live.”

Baruch laughs, almost doubling over he thinks what I’ve said is so funny.  When he finally regains control of himself, he turns to the Watcher holding Chandler and says, “Kill him.”

The next few seconds become a blur of motion.  I watch as the Watc
her holding Chandler sinks his teeth into the base of my friend’s neck, causing Chandler to cry out in excruciating pain.  His cry awakens something buried in the well of my soul and I feel the flames of righteousness burn bright.  Before I know it, I find myself holding the flaming sword given to me as my talisman on Earth.

The
arching flames of the sword blaze across the dark desert sand drawing the attention of the others.

“Let him go,” I
demand of the Watcher holding Chandler.  Out of sheer fear, the Watcher instantly lets Chandler go.  Chandler falls to the sand on his hands and knees gasping for breath.

“How did you get that?” Baruch
hisses and I see the terror in his eyes, not scared of the sword itself it seems but scared of me now since I possess the ability to call such a weapon to my side.

“Do you think you’re strong enough to keep it?” Baruch asks me.  “If I take that sword from you, I can kill Lucifer with it and finally be free of him.”

I tighten my grip on the hilt of the blade.  I’ve never swung a sword in my life and I have no idea if I can fight off the dark angel standing in front of me, but I know I would rather die than let him take the sword from my grasp.

“I guess you’ll have to see for yourself if I’m strong enough.”  I take a deep breath and wait for the attack.

I’ve always wondered why action movies show fights in slow motion and now I understand why.  The next few seconds seem to move slower in my mind than I know they are in reality.  Baruch rushes me, his cloak billowing out behind him making him look like a bird of prey.  I duck out of his initial attempt to tackle me to the ground and swing the sword at his back setting the black feathers of his cloak on fire.  Baruch rips the flaming cloak off his back in a swirl of motion and throws it to the desert sands.  He whips around to face me again. He’s so close the flames of my sword are reflected in his dark eyes.

“Give me that sword,” he growls menacingly.

“Come and get it,” I taunt.

Baruch phases
almost on top of me, grabbing the arm which holds the sword by the wrist and twisting so hard I hear my delicate bones break.  The pain is almost unbearable with the added weight of the sword and the hilt begins to slip out of my hand. 

I feel cool fingers pluck the sword out of my
grasp and see Chandler, standing behind Baruch, armed with the sword.  With one mighty swing, Chandler buries the blades edge in Baruch’s back.

Baruch looks at me in dismay, not understanding what’s just happened.

As I watch Chandler slide the sword out of Baruch, the Watcher’s body explodes into a pile of glistening black ash covering the pale desert sand between Chandler and I.  Cradling my broken wrist to my chest, I look where the other two Watchers are because I don’t understand why they aren’t attacking us.  I see them kneeling on the desert floor with their faces buried in their hands sobbing uncontrollably.  Their children are whining beside them, not understanding what is happening to their fathers.

“What’s wrong with them?” I ask
Chandler.

“I think I found my power,” he
tells me, breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight.  “I don’t know how but I knew if I touched them I could make them feel their deepest sorrow.”

Before I have time to ask my next question, Mason and Lucifer suddenly appear on either side of
Chandler.

“Better late than never, I guess,”
Chandler says to Mason before completely collapsing from exhaustion and blood loss.

I run to him and turn him over onto his side.  The wound on his neck is deep and still bleeding.

“We need to get him to a doctor,” I tell Mason.

Mason picks
Chandler up, cradling him in his arms, while I grab the sword.

I see Lucifer look from the sword to me.

“I suppose I’ll have to wait for an explanation on how you obtained such an item,” he says to me before his eyes glide over to the other Watchers and their children.  “It’s probably a good idea if you take them both away now, Mason.  I seriously doubt you want Jessica to see what I’m about to do to them.”

I grab onto Mason’s arm
without having to be told to do so.  I suddenly find myself in a bedroom similar to the one I occupied the last time I was at Mason’s villa.

“Shouldn’t we be taking him to a hospital?” I ask as Mason eases
Chandler’s body down onto the bed.

“Hospitals ask too many questions,” he tells me.  “I’ll go get Malik.  He’ll be able to heal the wound.  He’s done it before.”

Mason turns to me and pulls me into his arms.  I let out a whimper of pain which makes him instantly let me go.

“Where are you hurt?” He asks in sudden alarm.

“My wrist,” I say, still cradling the injured arm to my chest.

Mason kisses me on the forehead.  “I’ll be right back.”

He phases away and I go to sit beside Chandler on the bed.

He opens his eyes and tries to smile at me.

“We make a pretty good team,” he says weakly.

I nod.  “Yes we do.”

Only a few minutes pass before Mason returns with Malik.  Malik sets to work on Chandler immediately and I feel confident he is in good hands.  Mason phases me to the hospital in Tunica to have my wrist looked at.  Since everyone there knows I’m a Watcher agent, my injury doesn’t send up any red flags.  They simply consider it part of the dangers of my job.

Faison is on duty and makes the nurse attending me go away so she can do it herself.  Ten minutes later, Mama Lynn and George are at my side treating me like I’m a ten year old kid who broke a bone.  Mason stands in the background
watching as I’m cared for by my family.

Once my wrist is set, I’m ordered by the doctor to take it easy for a few days and get some rest.  I tell my family I need to go see a friend who was also injured in the same fight.  They’re reluctant to let me go but simply don’t have a choice.

Mason takes my hand and phases me back to his villa but we don’t immediately go to Chandler’s room.

Instead, Mason phases us to the living room and gently holds me in a tender embrace.

“What happened Jess?” He asks, since he has no way of knowing everything that transpired in the desert.

I tell Mason everything
that happened between my last text message to him and his and Lucifer’s sudden appearance in the desert.  I leave out the reason Baruch said he wanted to make me suffer because I know it will only cause Mason to feel more guilt unnecessarily.

Mason pulls away from me at the end of my tale, not asking any questions and phases me to
Chandler’s side.

Malik is still there holding
Chandler’s wrist like he’s checking his pulse.  Chandler tries to smile up at me but it comes out more of a grimace because of the pain he is in.

“How is he?” I ask Malik.

“He’ll be fine.  Just make sure he takes that medicine,” Malik says, nodding his head at a glass vial filled with blue liquid sitting on the table by the bed.  “He refused to take it until you got back.”

“It’s going to make me sleep,”
Chandler says in a weak voice.  “I wanted to speak with you first, Jess.”

Malik stands up.  “I’ve pretty much done everything I can for the moment.  It’s just going to take time to heal, but you shouldn’t have much of a scar from where the Watcher bit you.  I did the same thing for
Tara when she got bit way back when and you can hardly see the place on her neck anymore.”

“Thank you for helping him,” I say to Malik.

“Anytime.  But now I need to get back to my wife before she worries too much about me.”  Malik gathers up his bag of medicine and turns to Mason.  “Give me a lift home?”

Mason puts his hand on Malik’s arm and they phase out of the room.

I sit on the side of the bed by Chandler.

“What did you want to speak with me about?” I ask.

“You need to tell Mason why Baruch took us,” Chandler tells me.

“I’m not telling him.”

“Jess, I seriously doubt those people are the only ones with a vendetta against Mason.  You might be protected because of Lucifer’s order but the rest of your friends aren’t.”

“Even if I told him what difference would that make?”

“At least he would know it’s because they think by hurting the people you love they can hurt him too.  Tell him so he can help you protect the people around you.”

I shake my head.  “He doesn’t need to know. 
Mason’s dealt with enough guilt in his life.  I’m not about to add onto it.”

“Jess?”

I close my eyes at the sound of Mason’s voice behind me and wish he had made the popping noise to let us know he had phased back.

I reach for the vial of medicine on the table by the bed and open the top.

“Get some rest,” I tell Chandler as he opens his mouth and I pour the liquid in.

Almost instantly,
Chandler falls to sleep.

I stand to face Mason and
his questioning eyes.