Paradox - Progeny Of Innocence (bk2) (Paradox series) (23 page)

On the far wall Abe scrambled to his feet. "Catch," he called out, tossing Damon his sword. Damon caught the sword midair and without another word drove it into Eric's chest. Eric's eyes widened. His mouth popped open, and for a second he looked bewildered. The Oak sword made a crackling sound as it sizzled in his flesh. Eric convulsed, narrowed his eyes, and said, "She doesn’t know who you are, does she?" He gurgled, and then chuckled as a trail of blood oozed from his mouth. "How long do you think it will take until the others-"

Damon’s fingers squeezed Eric's throat, silencing him. He flashed a glance toward Grace. She was pushing herself along the floor with her feet, as far away from Eric as she could. Her face was pale, her eyes open wide and unblinking. Damon wondered how much she had heard. "Did anyone ever tell you, you talk way too much?" he said, as he twisted the sword deeper into Eric's chest, silencing him permanently.

Grace pushed herself up onto her feet and ran to Abe, wrapping him up in her arms, turning his face away from Eric's dead body on the floor, and moving them both back toward the wall.

Abe tried to struggle free. "It's okay, Grace," he said, looking confidently at Grace. "He was a baddie, and you have to kill the baddies."

Grace looked at Abe in disbelief, wondering why he wasn't afraid after what he had just witnessed. Maybe he was in shock, she thought to herself.

"Yes, Abe, you are probably right," she said, wiping her own tears away. She should call his mother, her mother, Wade, and the police. She looked at Eric's body and the pool of thick blood pooling on the tiled floor, then raised her eyes questioningly to look at Damon. Another vision that she'd seen before flashed through her mind. But this time she saw a face: Damon's face, as he knelt beside a body. This other body was dead, too, and it was Damon she saw in that vision pulling a sword out of a man's chest. Not a toy wooden sword, a long silver sword that reflected the oranges and reds of a blazing fire. She backed further away from him, pulling Abe with her.

He half smiled at her and opened his mouth. "Grace, it –"

She shook her head. "Are you going to try and tell me it isn't what I'm thinking? Because you have no idea what I'm thinking." She didn't really know what she was thinking either. She just knew that she didn't want any part of it. And most of all, she just wanted to make sure nothing happened to Abe. She wrapped her arms more tightly around him.

He squirmed in her grasp. "Grace, I can't breathe."

"Sorry," she murmured, loosening her grip on the boy a fraction.

"Eric was going to kill you, you know that, don't you?" he said, stepping toward her.

She knew that. But for all she knew, Damon was an enemy, too. Apart from Abe, she didn't know whom she could trust. "Don't," she said as he took another step toward her. "Don't come any closer."

"You need to let me explain."

"You don't need to explain anything to me. You need to explain this to the police," Grace said, scanning the room for her phone. She spotted it sitting on the coffee table next to Damon. Too close. Then she considered plan B and contemplated the phone on the kitchen wall. Too far. She didn't have a plan C.

"I'm sorry; I can't let you do that. You need to let me explain -"

"No," Angela said, rushing through the open doorway, her face still blackened with soot and plastered with wet stringy hair. Then she came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes fixed on Eric's body. "Are you okay, Grace?" she asked, shifting her vision from Eric to look directly at Damon.

Grace nodded. "Eric, he went completely nuts. I should have known something wasn't right when he began acting strange," she said, swallowing back tears. "He even threatened to hurt Abe." She looked at Angela's dirty face. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing really," she said absently, looking back down at Eric on the floor. After a few seconds she reached down, took a firm grip on the hilt of the sword, and pulled it effortlessly from Eric's chest as though it was something she had done a million times before. "You take care of that," she said, tilting her head towards Eric's body. "And I will take care of Grace." She turned to look at Abe. "And how are you?" she asked nonchalantly as she ran the sword along the wet leg of her jeans to remove Eric's blood from the timber blade.

Abe broke free of Grace's grasp and walked toward Angela, and in his little voice, he said, "I'm fine, he was a bad guy."

"Good," Angela said. "Why don't you find the other sword and put them both away in a safe place?" Abe nodded agreeably, gathering up the sword that Grace had used and swishing it through the air.

Grace looked completely perplexed as she stared at Abe. He was happily fighting an imaginary opponent in the lounge room. She looked at Damon, who had begun to haul Eric's lifeless body up and over his shoulder, as if he was throwing a beach towel over his shoulder for a day at the beach. Only this beach towel was stained with blood. And then, lastly, her gaze shifted and rested on Angela. Her little elf-like friend was wiping a bloodied sword across her jeans, as though she was wiping strawberry jam off a dirty bread and butter knife. Who
are
these people, Grace wondered to herself in disbelief. And what have they done with my friends?

Wade stood in the open doorway and stared into Ambrosia’s smiling face. She glanced down at the bunch of flowers Wade carried in his arms and frowned. Why was Wade bringing her flowers? Then Wade watched as the painful truth began to work its way in, and the blood slowly drained from Ambrosia’s face.

Her hazel eyes liquefied into a pool of tears. "What’s happened, oh God, where’s Gary, where is he, tell me, please," she begged frantically, holding a hand over her mouth.

"I’m sorry, Ambrosia. Gary's-"

"No!" Ambrosia screamed, snatching the flowers from Wade’s hands. "You can’t come here and tell me that, you can’t…" she said, starting to shake uncontrollably.

Wade reached for her to comfort her, to still her. She pushed him back hard on the chest, sending the flowers out of her arms and tumbling to the floor. Wade slammed hard into the wall, buckling the plasterboard sheeting into the shape of his back. The volume of the television grew louder and then the screen exploded, spraying out shattered particles of glass across the room.

Wade sprang forward and grabbed Ambrosia, holding her tight against him as her shaking became stronger, more violent. The room began to shudder, paintings and photographs toppling off the walls. Books, CD’s, and ornaments fell off shelving. Then the glass sliding doors shattered, as a massive crack snaked its way across the tiled floor, popping tiles with a loud cracking sound. The zigzagging snake climbed its way up the wall, leaving an open wound in its wake.

"Ambrosia, stop, concentrate, you can do this. You can control this. You have to control this..." She struggled against him violently, so he tightened his grip around her. "You know what I’m talking about, you’ve always known. Think, Ambrosia, remember, remember, you were a child-"

"Let me go, god damn you!"

"No, not until you stop this. You were just a child… and a young nurse named you Ambrosia…"

Ambrosia took a breath, and then another and another, until her body slowly stopped shaking. The room fell silent, still. "Her name was…" Ambrosia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. Her eyes shot open. "Lucina. Lucina was her name. I remember! I remember thinking that her skin looked like creamy chocolate. And she had the most amazing blue eyes."

"That's right. She named you Ambrosia, after a still-born child she had delivered…" Wade paused, and changed the direction of the conversation. That story was for another day. "She named you Ambrosia because she knew the name represented immortality."

Ambrosia nodded. "Lucina said that if I was brave, I would live forever." She started to cry. "How am I supposed to do that now, without Gary… why would I even want to?" she sobbed.

Wade held her. "It's okay. We will get through this together. I won't let you go. I promise. It is going to be okay. You are going to be fine, Ambrosia."

Wade held her for a long time. When she stopped crying, and the shaking had subsided, he asked her if she was okay. She nodded slowly, and he gently let her go. He wiped her face with the hem of his shirt.

"Who killed him, who took Gary from me?" she demanded, sitting up rigidly.

"The Grigorians," he said simply. "Then they had their beasts finish what they had started." Wade stood. He made his way through the debris scattered on the floor and went to the kitchen. He filled a glass with water and handed it to her. "Drink plenty of water, it helps. You’ve lost a lot of energy. Expelling that amount of power uses up the fluid in your body, dehydrates you, leaves you weak, vulnerable. Coffee is good, too. It helps settle the nervous system. It makes you harder to track. But only drink the brand that Gary has been giving you. It'll help secure you, keep you off their radar as much as possible."

She nodded. "I know it tastes a little different, but what makes it different from normal coffee?"

"Powdered mistletoe, it's added to the coffee beans, among other things. Like chewing gum, tea, flavoring in sauces... You can buy the coffee from the Bean. The coffee shop next to-"

"I know the one," she said, taking the glass of water and swallowing it down all at once. "And the flavor, do the Grigorians know, can they taste it?"

"Depends what it's in and how much of it there is. But if you have it around them, in any form, unbeknown to them, it weakens their abilities. They find the smell obnoxious, so if they do smell it, it repels them. And if it is ingested over a long period of time, it will weaken them to a point that it will eventually kill them. If you really want to watch them squirm, hang it over their heads. It sends them running and they have no idea why."

Ambrosia frowned. "Mistletoe? Just plain old mistletoe? Should I know any of this?" She shook her head, trying to bring down the wall that was blocking her memories.

"It'll all come back to you eventually. Lots of things will," Wade said, leaning against the kitchen counter. "But not just any old mistletoe. It's the Mistletoe that's native to the Forest Of Doors and grows in the branches of the Ancient Oak."

"Altair, I remember! The Forest People, the Celts, the Druids, and Willow." Her memories began flooding back as if the wall to a dam had finally come crashing down, and she continued. "In ancient times, the Druids held a ceremony, five days after the new moon following -"

"Following the Winter Solstice…" Wade said, encouraging her on.

She became animated as her memories kept revealing themselves to her. "The priests, the ancient ones, they would cut the Mistletoe from the sacred Oak with a golden sickle. Then the priests divided up the sprigs and distributed them among the Forest People to protect them from evil. It was used in their hair as decorations, hung above doorways or in wreaths, so the Grigorians couldn't enter."

"The ritual has been passed down over countless centuries," Wade added, "but has mostly been forgotten. Originally though, it was used any time strangers were going to be invited into the home. But now it's only used for Christmas and New Year decorations." Wade bent down and picked up a twig that was nestled amongst the dying flowers spread across the rubble on the floor. He handed it to her. "Gary bought you flowers every week, didn't he?" It wasn’t a question.

Ambrosia took in a breath and nodded, pushing the grief that came bubbling to the surface away. She had to do this. She had to be strong.

"He made sure that mistletoe was in every bunch, to protect you."

"They didn't protect Gary," Ambrosia shot back.

"The flowers were still in the back seat of his car when they attacked him," Wade said quietly.

Ambrosia swallowed back fresh tears. "I’m going to find them, and I’m going to kill them, and I won’t stop until they are all dead," she said, in an emotionless voice.

Wade sat back down. "That’s why we are here," he said, letting out a breath. "Tracking them down has been harder than we had anticipated. And with so many of us still missing, well, it hasn’t been easy."

"Why didn’t Gary tell me, why didn’t you tell me any of this before? I could have helped," Ambrosia said weakly.

"You weren’t ready, Gary knew that. When Sol and Dina died, for example… the next day you wouldn’t talk about what happened at
O'Regan's
. You blocked it all out. You refused to acknowledge it, your part in it. So we knew it wasn’t time. The human side of you was still too strong."

Ambrosia pushed herself to her feet. "This is my fault. Gary is dead because of me. You should have told me, I would have understood. I could have made a difference, I could have saved him."

"No," Wade said. "You would have just exposed yourself. And it wouldn't have just been Gary that died tonight. Your emotions were still too raw. It isn't about blocking them out. You have to be able to control them."

"Are you telling me that I can’t grieve for-?"

"No." Wade replied. "You can’t, not now. Humans grieve, but we can’t allow ourselves that emotion. Any emotion that is not completely controlled will set us off. As soon as we start to remember who we really are …" Wade waved his hand across the room. "Well, this is the result. And now you remember what happened at
O'Regan's
, too. That could easily have exposed you."

"The television reports said there was an earth tremor that caused all the damage. Maybe it wasn't me at all..."

"Oh, it was you, alright. We just got lucky when an earth tremor and a faulty gas pipe were blamed for all the damage. That stopped any other questions from being asked. Plus it doesn’t hurt having contacts in the fire department."

She sat back down. "I could have hurt people."

"Yes, you could have, but you didn’t. Not that time."

"And you, what about you?"

"What you see isn’t exactly what you get. Neither are you and neither was Gary," Wade said.

"I can remember the car accident and the little girl now… she was thrown from the car and was going to die. She was so badly injured, so much internal bleeding. Her parents died when the car rolled into the deep ravine and was hidden from sight by the forest. I took her body..." Ambrosia turned toward Wade. "And you, what about you?"

"I was Grace's father; she is a student in your class."

"Brian, you’re Brian Connors?" Ambrosia asked incredulously.

"One and the same, but for all intents and purposes, I am Wade."

"So you aren’t really human anymore, the human part of you, that was Wade?

"Wade's thoughts have all but gone now, just his body remains, and a few fleeting memories of Natalie and his family from time to time. But it isn't anything I can't control. Eventually, he gave himself over completely so he didn't have to relive the loss of his family every day. The grief was destroying him, a little more each day, until there was nothing left. That's when I stepped in. At first, it was difficult. But the more Wade let go, let me take over, the easier it got for both of us. The hardest part has been remembering to call myself Wade."

And every time he'd looked in the mirror to shave, it had been the reflection of a stranger who stared back at him.

He thought about the days that had followed his death. How painful it was to watch Kate and Grace as they grieved for him. How hard it was not to reach out to them and tell them he was still with them. That he would always be watching over them. And then some days, how he had lived through the excruciating grief that Wade felt for the loss of his own family. There had been a brief time when he'd had to leave. Wade's human emotions had begun to resurface, lessening his control. So to protect Kate and Grace, he sent for Angela, and left.

And Grace is -" Ambrosia asked.

"A Wafe," Wade said.

Ambrosia stood up and walked around the shattered apartment, stepping over broken furniture and picture frames. "She doesn’t know?"

"No, she doesn’t, and it has to stay that way, it’s too early, too dangerous. She isn’t ready. She is still reliving the past lives of the soul she is attached to. She hasn't been able to separate herself from her host. She needs to be able to completely take control before she can understand fully what she is and what she is capable of. The damage you see here is nothing compared to the damage a Wafe is capable of unleashing."

"And the other … Wafes?" Ambrosia asked, filling her glass with water and swallowing it down in three gulps. She refilled her glass again and drank it, her throat still dry and parched from dehydration.

"Two are here. One went missing in the same airline crash that Sol and Dina died in. They were over there to secure her, but something went very wrong. The Grigorians learnt that there were two Bulguardians on the aircraft with a possible Wafe. So they brought down the aircraft. The rest you know."

"So many innocents had to die…" Ambrosia said, refilling her glass.

"That’s what they do. Collateral damage is nothing to them if it helps them achieve their goal. Disasters like this have covered their tracks for centuries. House fires, car crashes, ocean liners sinking and blamed on an iceberg. Mine disasters… The list is long. They are very clever at covering up their murderous tracks. Satanic rituals are a popular choice of late."

Ambrosia continued. "What about cyclones, tsunamis, floods, the so-called natural disasters?"

"More often than not it will be a Wafe, or one of us that is out of control. When a Wafe can sense danger to his host body or someone he cares about, he can accidentally set off a chain of natural disasters. Some of course can be worse than others. And some are completely natural, just Mother Nature letting off some steam."