Gabriel (2 page)

Eventually the Reverends O'Sileabhin made their way to the gardens at the back of the pub, where they pulled out two fine cigars to smoke in Padraig's honor. A tradition, shared between them, to mark and show respect for those who had fallen for the cause.

The sun was nearly set and the dust of the land could be seen rising into the air where the light above the door illuminated a stripe ahead of them. The wind picked up, whistling toward the doorway, and the particles swirled and dispersed as day prepared to give way to night.

Cillian struggled to keep the flame from his match alive, but then the bitter breeze dropped. As the flame grew strong and high, the end of his cigar turned red. The reverends inhaled the tobacco while an eerie stillness crept over the gardens. The noise from the wake inside seemed to fade, and a figure stepped out from the shadows.

Neither O'Sileabhin brother was prepared for the golden-haired woman who suddenly presented herself. She was not human. No mere mortal could be so breathtaking.

“I need your assistance,” she began.

Dumbfounded, the O'Sileabhin brothers glanced at each other before staring back at the beauty before them.

“You come to us from the Lord?” Diarmuid asked.

“I am what you would call an Angel, and
I need your assistance
.” She repeated the phrase, the words gliding from her tongue. Though her features were soft, she had a look of steely determination beaming from her wide eyes. “There is little time. Reverend Cillian O'Sileabhin, are you still the leader of the band of men known as the Sealgaire?”

Cillian placed his hand to the top of the revolver in his waistband. “You know my name; tell me yours.”

Diarmuid wrapped his hand firmly around the barrel of the revolver and pushed Cillian's arm down. “Brother, no! She comes to us from the Lord.” He furrowed his brow and turned back toward the Angel. “That we are, Seraph. How is it we may assist you?”

“Your name?” Cillian demanded once again.

The Angel shifted her weight from side to side as she considered that the darkness was fast approaching. Finally she said, “Aingeal.”

Cillian lurched backward, and his fingers tightened around the base of his cigar.

“There is a girl.…” the Angel began, her words pausing before rushing forth. “I need you to seek her out. I need you to save her.”

“What girl, and what does she need saving from?” Diarmuid asked quickly.

“She needs saving from herself. She resides too closely to a large Vampire Army. If they find her, if they know her…” She trailed off. As the darkened shadows of night began to draw across the surrounding land, the wind returned, almost acting as a warning. “I must go. I will send word of where she resides.”

“How will we know who she is?” Diarmuid pushed.

“I gave her the name Lailah. But she goes by many. If your heart is truly pure, you will find her; she will look like me.” With that, she turned on her heel.

“Wait!” Cillian found his voice. Stepping forward, he reached for the Angel's arm and looked her square in the eye. “You knew her. You helped her. Tell me, did she make it?”

The Angel contemplated and then finally replied. “Yes. She is safe with the sea.”

Diarmuid shook his head in confusion; he did not understand what it was his brother had asked the Angel nor the reply she had given.

The Angel's eyes darted around as the light above the door flickered, and she feared she had stayed too long. With no further hesitation, she proceeded to slink into the gray of night.

Diarmuid shouted after her. “Dear Angel, please, I don't understand!”

The Angel Aingeal stopped, grinding her heels into the grass. “Reach her, before they do.” She tipped her weight backward and peered over her shoulder. “Or the battle line between the worlds shall be drawn here in the blood of mortals, and everything will turn to ash.”

And then, she was gone.

Fueled with a new sense of purpose, Cillian stubbed out his cigar and hurried back into the pub to gather the men.

Diarmuid turned to follow, but the sound of brambles snapping in the tree line that bordered the gardens caused him to halt. Cautiously, he trudged through the bare undergrowth, pushing past the tangled, low-hanging branches. Nothing could have prepared him for who stood waiting.

The Angel was not the only one to deliver a message that evening.

 

ONE

T
HEY SAY THAT DEATH
is a part of life. And that the only thing in life that is truly certain is death.

But “they” never met me.

I gasped and air filled my lungs, circulating some form of life back into my sleeping body. My senses were dulled. Everything around me seemed to move slowly, frame by frame. Or maybe it was just him. Not moving, merely staring at me with the most remarkable, utterly unreadable expression.

Rays of sunlight shone through the trees, creating shadowed stripes across his face, but nothing could darken those sapphire eyes.

Everything was utterly serene.

I released a steady breath and the frost of this new day tingled on my lips. It was as though I was blowing a bubble through a magical sphere, as the image of him and the snowy landscape behind seemed to stretch. Gently, as I exhaled, it expanded. He and the scenery around him became caught in my bubble.

I was holding the whole world trapped within my first full breath.

It was beautiful. He was beautiful. And I was home.

But then a dark, swirling cloud appeared, and when it dispersed, a new pair of mesmerizing midnight eyes blemished the beauty of the snowy scene. The stranger stood not far from the blond guy, where he watched me.

His black orbs pulled me in, sucking and destroying the light and peace I had felt. And before I knew what was happening, my gaze became imprisoned by his eyes.

Panicking, I inhaled sharply, and the bubble I had created rocketed back toward me. A strange new scent rode the breeze and rushed all around me, finally catching in the back of my throat. From zero to a thousand, the whole world slapped me in the face as the bubble burst.

Without warning, peace erupted into chaos, and everything became audible at once. The sound of a bird chirping miles away stabbed my eardrums; the distant noise of the wind hitting tree trunks felt like tidal waves smacking me underneath them. And that step he took toward me—the sound of his shoe in the snow down underfoot—almost caused my eardrums to rupture as the ice crunched from his weight.

I bolted upright, craning my neck toward the origin of the overwhelming scent. I regarded the shadowed stranger daring to look back at me, daring now to approach me. But my attention was drawn away from his dark eyes, to his elbow, where the smallest trace of blood was smeared against his pale skin and where I witnessed the final moments of a wound healing.

A strange sensation flooded me as my teeth fractured into fangs and my top lip quivered. My skin crawled with an intensifying heat, rising from inside me. I wasn't in control of what happened next. My legs swung off the large stone that I had been placed upon and found their way to the ground. I let out a low moan and my body attempted to stretch, but it wasn't fully awake yet and I stumbled down to the snowy blanket beneath me. I clawed my way to my feet, getting ever closer to that scent, as my body propelled itself in the stranger's direction. I came to an abrupt stop as strong arms wrapped themselves around my waist, turning me away from the stranger.

I struggled against the restraint, but he whispered, “Lailah, no,” and the coolness of his breath skimmed my earlobe.

I paused, and my red-hot skin simmered against him. My gums ached as my new fangs receded. My body weakened, but he held me tightly and eased me to the ground, cradling me in a protective embrace.

“You need to go.” His hurried voice cut through the jumbled noise invading my hearing.

“But…” The stranger's footsteps moved closer from behind me, and I growled and dug my fingernails into the earth beneath the snow.

“Go,” my protector said. “Now.”

The stranger hesitated for only a moment before the wind whipped against my warm cheeks as he sped away through the clearing.

My ears throbbed, and I covered them with my hands as I rocked back and forth, letting a scream escape from my lungs.

“Shhhhh,” my protector said, “it's all right. I'm here, shhhhh.…” He cupped his hands over my own.

A trickle of liquid seeped between our entwined fingers, and I knew my eardrums were bleeding.

As the sun rose higher, the glow of twinkling stars moved around me. It was a sight I'd seen before. But, this time, the flashes of ice crystals came from my skin as well as his. His light wrapped itself around mine, and a sudden explosion of energy filled me. As the crystals from his skin and my own merged, our connection rekindled.

He held me for what felt like an eternity, and I closed my eyes, allowing the sun's rays to sink into my new skin. Finally, the noises dulled into a low hum, but I still didn't feel right; I was dizzy.

He helped me to my feet, and I hesitated, stumbling as I broke away from him. I sensed him following me, but I held my hand in the air, signaling for him to stay back. I stood, precariously balancing my weight, barefoot in the snow. I breathed in and out, forming a rhythm, taking my time. He waited patiently.

“I may not remember you, but I never forgot you,” I whispered. “One shared light, split into two…”

As though I was staring through a kaleidoscope, memories, thoughts, feelings all took new shape, each becoming more prominent than the last as it moved into focus.

“Styclar-Plena,” I said. “The third dimension. Earth. Home—choice. I had a choice.…”

The blur that filled the space in between the luminous charms brought with it a different type of memory: a scar, reimprinting itself, damaging me again.

Michael—a Second Generation Vampire, killed by his Gualtiero (Pureblood Master), Eligio—when his plan to hand me over to the Purebloods backfired on him.

Ethan—the fiancé from my first life, who had fled after accidentally killing me only to be changed by a Pureblood Vampire. After seeing me alive, over a hundred and fifty years from when he thought he had ended my life, he chased me down and ultimately met his demise in his attempt to seek revenge.

Frederic—the first Second Generation Vampire I could recall knowing. Whom I had foolishly befriended, and who had dragged me through the woods with a sharpened hook lodged in my back, and whom the girl in shadow—me—had then mercilessly killed.

Bradley—the not so gentlemanly gentleman in the club in Limoux. He had also fallen victim to my extreme dark side—to the girl in shadow. And just like the others who had crossed me, Bradley was no longer alive to tell the tale.

And now she was gone; the girl in shadow was ended. I had died, but I was back. He led me home—his face, the thought of him, and the thought of me.

I bowed my head and my bangs shielded my eyes. I turned slowly toward him. His dimples dipped at the sides of his cheeks as he frowned. His pupils expanded. He was anxious to hear what I was about to say.

“Gabriel.” A small smile crept across my lips before I added, “My Gabriel. You waited for me.”

The knots in his body loosened. He murmured, “I knew to wait for you this time.”

Stepping cautiously toward me, he tilted my chin with his index finger. He swept my bangs away, clearing my vision, and then cupped my cheek with his palm. He looked me square, exploring my eyes. But he looked away—fast. Too fast.

I had fought my way back, and yet with that one silent glance, I knew a great chasm was already forming between us. What I didn't know then was that it wasn't the appearance of my new sapphire eyes flecked with black spots that had caused Gabriel to look away, but instead, it was his fleeting thought of what lay behind them.

I sighed heavily and began to pace through the clearing, oozing a false sense of confidence, as though I knew where I was going when really I knew nothing. But I was afraid that the longer I stood there the greater the unspoken divide between us would become.

He raced to my side and took my hand with his own. “Do you remember … everything?” he asked tentatively.

“I remember … I remember the last six years. I remember the memories and the dreams I have had for the same time. I can't recall anything before. And I know the things she did. The girl in shadow.” I gulped. “Me.”

“She was an extreme darkness, Lai; she's gone now. You accepted both sides of yourself before your heart stopped. It's probably why you haven't forgotten.”

As we moved through the snow underfoot, the trees' bare branches seemed to bow, as though they pitied me.

“I'm different. Again, I'm different.” I sighed and let my hand drift away from Gabriel's.

“No. It's just now, for the first time in your existence, you know where you come from. You know what you were born out of and into. You're you. What gifts you have, how they work on this plane, is something we will find out together.”

I wasn't sure how right he was about that. I didn't feel human anymore. I was born into human skin, having been birthed here on Earth. And when I died at seventeen nearly two centuries ago, I awoke having inherited my immortal lineage.

“I smelled blood, and fangs broke through my gums, Gabriel.” I paused to allow the weight of that fact to sink beneath Gabriel's sea-of-glass exterior. “I'm light and dark; I know it to be true now. And I don't even really know what that means for me yet. But Azrael said I could exist and keep my form in any of the three dimensions. So the Arch Angels will come from the first dimension, and the Purebloods will come from the third to find me. They will all seek me out, here in the second.”

He stopped dead in his tracks; at last something I'd said had caused a reaction.

“Yes,” he said, “they will. If they find out you are alive, they will hunt you down, and they won't stop until they have you. So, we cut all ties and we leave together. We'll hide. You have been through enough. It ends here.” Gabriel's jaw locked and his eyes widened with conviction.