UnGuarded (32 page)

I COULD ONLY SENSE ONE BEATING HEART in my
old dorm room, even though the commotion I’d just heard sounded
like there were several people in there. I bit my bottom lip as I
hovered in my ghostly form at the door, hesitant to float inside
and see what was causing the noise. It was nighttime, and since no
light shone at the base of the door, I knew whomever the heartbeat
belonged to was sleeping and oblivious to the spiritual ruckus.
Darius had warned not to show myself to my friends, but he hadn’t
said anything about other demons and beings. But just to take
precaution anyway, I masked my aura as I glided into the room.

I felt my eyes widen at the sight of two
demons and one guardian angel in the middle of a heated argument. I
recognized Morton, but didn’t know the angel or the other demon.
The angel stopped talking mid-sentence, his gaze hardening as he
searched around the room. “Who’s there?” he called out in an
annoyed tone, waiting a few short moments before setting his eyes
back on Morton and the other demon.

The trio became background noise once I
realized the angel could only sense my presence but couldn’t see me
or determine where I was in the room, and the demons didn’t seem to
have a clue I was there at all. All my mind could focus on was that
Morton, one of Caitlyn’s demons, was here. In a whoosh of air, I
was at her bed, my gaze trailing up the mass of blankets and
landing on her face. Only it wasn’t Caitlyn’s face I was looking
at. It was a young lady, about her same size and age, with flaming
red hair and an abundance of freckles coating her cheeks and
forehead. “Damn it,” I muttered as my heart twisted with sharp,
stinging pain. Then I shook my head, feeling waves of unbearable
sadness wash through me.

Since I didn’t know who this girl was—I’d
never seen her before on campus—she must have just enrolled. And I
guess that meant Caitlyn had un-enrolled. Most likely, not by
choice either. My chest tightened and my breathing grew short and
ragged. My translucent hand pressed against the cotton material of
my shirt just over my heart, but the pain didn’t ease up—actually
it worsened a little. Tears formed, then gushed over the ledge of
my eyelids. Even with my diaphanous body, my face still felt wet
and sticky, and after a beat my eyes started to burn. Crying wasn’t
going to bring my charge back, though, nor would it answer any of
my questions. I needed to pull it together and move on. Especially
not knowing when my ankh would be calling again with another
mission.

“…can threaten us all you want, but we’re
not going anywhere.”

I glanced behind me, choking back the last
of my sobs, and saw a challenging grin formed in Morton’s blobby
shape. I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to blast him with an
energy ball. Sharp pains reignited, now prickling everywhere inside
me, combining with a fresh eruption of anger, and I wanted
desperately to materialize and demand that Morton tell me if
Caitlyn was dead. But since he hadn’t been her primary demon—that
position belonged to Grote—then it was quite possible that Morton
didn’t know anything. So I made a quick decision to keep the mask
over my aura. No point in getting in trouble just yet.

The other demon caught my attention as he
shuffled over to the bed, casting a malicious gaze down at the
girl. He was in human form and appeared to be a sixteen-year-old
boy with dark brown hair and a slender figure—too young and
innocent looking to be an evil, soulless demon. But the way he
looked at this innocent human girl was sinister, diabolically evil
in its most raw form. They’d hurt her for no reason other than
their inner desire to hurt and destroy people, and at that moment I
really, really wanted so desperately to intervene and kick both
these demons’ butts. If I didn’t hurry up and get out of here, I’d
end up getting involved in something my gut told me I
shouldn’t.

Suddenly, there was an explosion of light
radiating throughout the room. I dropped to the floor, throwing my
arms over my eyes, feeling the searing light burn deep in my flesh.
The air around me compressed like the pressure of a storm, and my
ears needed to pop. Even though I wasn’t visible to the angel,
obviously he could still bring me down with his power. That made me
wonder how I’d fight—or rather win—against a guardian if it ever
came down to it. I peered around my makeshift shield and saw both
demons cowering to the floor, crying out for the angel to stop. I
wanted to cry out too: that angel’s light energy hurt like hell,
and it made me miss having that old ability. A twinge of remorse,
then my chest tightened with grief—both for Caitlyn and myself—and
then I closed my eyes and focused on my next destination.

Moments later it felt as if my ears had
finally popped, my skin no longer smoldered, and I was standing in
an alley just outside Luke’s basement apartment. It was dark on
this side of the continent too, just as it had been on the
outskirts of the Midwest. Since I could no longer feel Luke’s aura,
I couldn’t sense if he was home. There was no heartbeat behind the
door, beneath the stairs, or anywhere else within the confines of
Luke’s personal space—which only meant no humans were in there. I
did, however, pick up a slightly familiar scent that I knew
belonged to the one I sought. But I had no way to know if it was
old or new; it could be his residual essence from hours ago, days
ago, or even months ago. Although I was hoping beyond hope that if
I didn’t see him in person once I entered his apartment, I’d at
least find some form of evidence proving he’d recently been
here—and confirming he was still alive.

I squared my shoulders and floated through
the door, down the stairs, and into his studio-styled living
quarters. My breath caught in stunned surprise as I took in the
disheveled view of the room. Luke had always been a neat and
orderly kind of vampire, but what I saw here was the exact
opposite. Sofa cushions were stacked on their sides, one of them
completely tipped over. Clothes were strewn all over, hanging over
the back of a few chairs and lying in heaps on the floor. I drifted
through the room, noticing broken glass littering the floor around
the coffee table, glistening in the soft lamp light like jewels in
the sun. The back table was covered by at least a dozen hardcover
books. An observing glance told me most of them were about raising
the dead. Even though I was certain that no one was here, I decided
not to materialize and rummage through the books. Instead I lowered
my face closer to a stack of two of them, and inhaled deeply,
filling my nose with an unfamiliar scent—and just beneath it was
Luke’s.

I gasped with excitement, but quickly shook
that feeling away. It didn’t prove Luke had been here recently. It
only proved that
someone
had been here, trying to raise the
dead. Either Luke was alive, and he thought I was dead—thus trying
to find a way to bring me back. Or Luke was dead and someone was
trying to get
him
back. But I didn’t sense Huron on those
books, and he was the only one I knew powerful enough to even
attempt such a thing. I stuck around and searched the place more
thoroughly, not finding anything else that would give me any clues.
I guessed my next stop would be the voodoo Indian’s bar. But just
as I started concentrating on going there, the ankh flared up,
pulling me somewhere else altogether.

Water was everywhere. No land in sight as
far as my eyes could see. Masses of downy white and pale silvery
clouds drifted in the sky above as if in a hurry to get somewhere.
I hovered about a half foot above the sea, in my diaphanous form,
feeling thankful for the first time for being what I was
now—whatever that was. Darius was so mysterious about a lot of
things, especially what we were. He’d summed it up with him being
my guide. But my questions remained: What was I? What was he? Had
he been keeping the balance between good and evil all along? And
better yet: Why the heck was I in Anthemusa?

I stared at the blazing ankh waiting for it
to tell me the answers I sought. But when I opened my mind,
allowing it to show me what to do, it gave me an image of a
siren—in big trouble. And it wanted me to help her. A vaporous
demon had been wandering throughout Anthemusa sucking the energy
from every water demon it came across, and killing them off along
with their precious sea snakes. Somewhere farther out at sea, the
weakened, petrified siren was trapped inside an orb of inky
fumes—AKA, the vapor demon—and it wouldn’t be long before it
finished her off. But what the ankh showed me next only brought
more irony to my situation. The siren in danger was the same one
who’d threatened me twice before when I’d accidentally orbed here
as an angel.

“
Just great
,” I mumbled through a
sigh. I really didn’t want to help her. She’d driven me crazy with
her stupid whiny challenges, and now I’d have to suck all of that
up and save her? My wrist burned hotter, the ankh flaring brighter
and redder, and I knew it was letting me know that time was running
out. I took a deep, unsatisfying breath and focused on the
siren.

Though once I got there a few seconds later,
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t fight the vapor demon with
combat force, not only because my fist would go straight through it
with no effect, but also because I was in my ghostly form so I
could stay afloat above the water. I could blast it from a distance
with my energy, but how do I keep my electrifying power from frying
the siren? The vapor demon held most of her helpless body above the
water, but there was still a small part of her dangling beneath the
surface. The scorching symbol on my wrist forced me to figure it
out quick, so I unmasked my aura and approached the demon. “Release
her,” I called out, sounding authoritative. Goody for me.

The vaporous demon’s hazy, inky blue shape
rippled the way perfectly still water does when you poke it with
your fingertips, and it hissed a warning low and deep. But with it
lacking a mouth—or a face for that matter—it was hard to tell where
exactly it’d come from. I could vaguely see the siren inside the
vapor cloud. It looked like her aqueous body was somehow melting
like the way hot wax drips over the edge of a votive candle. Thick,
wet streams slid down her body, the small drops splashing into the
sea just below her. The indentations where her eyes were, on her
water-formed face—which had been so much more lovely the last two
times I saw her—were now deeper and sagging at the lids. It seemed
like the thin line of her mouth was frowning as I moved a little
closer.

“I said let her go”—again spoken with
confidence, even though I was praying on the inside this thing
would just listen to me so I wouldn’t have to fight it.

Another threatening hiss—the same sound
you’d hear if you got too close to a rattlesnake a second before
the warning shake of its tail. But even as fear thickened inside
me, I still kept heading toward it.

All at once, a handless, pellucid arm
extended out from the vapor demon’s body and struck me across the
chest with the force of a battering ram. I hunched over, grabbing
my stomach, but keeping my eyes locked on my attacker as I steadied
myself for its next move. Only instead of coming at me again, its
arm folded back into the rest of its body. Just great, that thing
can touch me in my ghost form—not good at all. I quickly cast my
hardened gaze around, hoping to see Darius but doubting I would;
therefore I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t find my guide.
Regardless, I needed to do something bolder, since my verbal
requests weren’t getting me anywhere. I pushed all my focus on the
power inside me, being careful not to use the full force of it,
then thrust it outward in an invisible burst. It knocked the inky
cloud back several feet, freeing the siren of its hold so that she
dropped into the sea with a faint splash. Her body automatically
blended with the water, but her human-like form still held enough
shape so I could see her floating on top.

I swung my attention back to the vapor demon
just as it flew into me, enveloping my body inside its smoky form.
The air was heavier, thicker, building up pressure in my head and
against my chest, making me feel like I weighed a ton. Panic rushed
up my spine as I fought to get out, but I was barely able to move
and couldn’t break free of its hold. I was trapped, and scared
beyond what my mind could handle, but I fought to hold myself
together since freaking out never really helps anyways. Okay, so
maybe I was freaking out a little.

The minutes seemed to creep along and I
hadn’t made any progress. I was still trapped within the demon’s
cloudy, bubble-shaped body, the sea an indistinct view beyond it.
When my countless attempts to blast this thing with more of my
power failed, I frantically tried to think of some other way to
free myself. Then it occurred to me that maybe this demon couldn’t
hold me up if I was in my physical form. I shimmered—just as I’d
always done since being with Darius—but nothing happened. I was
still diaphanous, and the demon still had its unbreakable hold on
me. A rush of mixed emotions washed over me, sending shudders of
panic through my body. My wrist grew hotter, pulling my gaze to it.
The ankh was still fiery red but was now warping in and out,
gaining about an inch in size, then shrinking to its normal shape.
It kept repeating that process over and over, burning hotter and
hotter. I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, and willed all my
thoughts away from the pain, away from the fear, away from the
doubt and hopelessness. Once I felt the clearing in my mind, I
pushed all my energy into the ankh, fighting to embrace it and
touch its energy. More excruciating pain shot through me and I knew
without a doubt that the demon was trying to suck my life force,
just as it had been doing with the siren’s. I could sense some of
my power being pulled out of my body, slowly—like pulling a bucket
filled with water from a well.