The Second Sign (26 page)

“I need to see you. I’m going to escape here and
come over there. There’s so much I need to tell you.”

“No!” He hated the urgency of his voice. “No,” he
said slowly. “Stay home.”

“I want to see you. I have something I need to tell
you in person.”

He pressed his eyes. How he wanted to hear her tell
him she loved him. Maybe they could be demons together. The thought
made him smirk. Stupid. But hearing her say she loved him would
allow him to hope for eternity. “I’ll come over there. Just stay
there and wait for me,” he said just as the lights went out and a
chorus of screams surged throughout the house.

Shots rang out in the lower levels, wails followed,
and then silence.

Jake ran down the hallway, dropping the phone and
moving toward the stairs. The frantic beating of his heart drumming
in his ears filled the silence.

“Dad,” he whispered harshly from the top of the
stairs. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. On the
stairs, just where it curved, Donald lay sprawled. His head twisted
at a severe angle, his deep set eyes still open staring at him in
the darkness. Jake leapt off the banister, falling to his feet on
the lower level with a loud thump. Miller still sat in the
high-back chair, his head against the now dark fabric behind him, a
hole in the center of his forehead. Sally lay on the floor at his
feet, almost appearing asleep, though Jake couldn’t see her chest
rising and falling. He went to the kitchen where a light flickered.
In the dimness of the candlelight, his world collapsed around him.
He’d been pranked. It had to be.

His father lay sprawled on the floor, his chest
rising and falling, the only indication that he was still alive.
Alexi stood next to Jenna, a blade against the soft flesh under her
chin. A trail of blood dripped down her neck. Jenna looked at him,
tears falling from her bright blue eyes. He remembered her easy
laugh when they first got there. The way Jenna had relaxed for the
first time since their mother died. The innocence of those eyes
bore into his soul and stabbed at his heart.

“Don’t—” was all he could get out before his throat
tightened.

Alexi wore a smile reeking of malice. She looked
like a crazed stalker finally getting her prize. Though Jake
couldn’t imagine what she had sold for it. Nor why.

“We’ve come to collect your soul,” Alexi said, her
voice even.

Jake clenched and unclenched his fist. Alexi was
human. He was sure of it. He could reach over to her and snap her
neck for this. Heat spiraled from his core, tearing at the fabric
of his being. He would kill her.

Alexi’s eyes changed from the smug of victory to the
fear of death. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” She led his gaze
to a hooded figure just behind him. Alexi smiled. “It’s okay.
You’re going to be mine.”

“Let her go. I’ll go without a fight.”

Was any of this real? Demons and angels? Was he
going to wake up anytime soon? No. Deep inside he knew the truth of
it. It had always been his fate.

Alexi sighed, hate etched on her face. “Oh, I know.
But see, we’re not only collecting
your
soul.”

Gabby.

Pain swallowed him, and he pitched forward into the
darkness.

Believe

Jake was in trouble.

“Open the door!” Gabby cried. Her veins boiled,
blasting heat to her very core. Her head still hurt like hell where
Zorn had knocked her out and the marking on her leg felt on fire.
And now she had to save Jake. She turned to the window, picked up a
chair, and sent it careening into the solid pane. It rippled with
the force, but its integrity remained.

Max charged through the door with his eyes wide.
“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s Jake. They’re there now. We have to go to
him.” She brushed past him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her
back. She had the sudden urge to claw her way out of his grasp,
even if it meant hurting him.

“Gabby, we can’t,” he said. “The others are at
Elle’s fighting a horde of demons. It was a set-up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Pat set us up. Elle is a golem, but the demons were
there waiting for us. Mir sent me back here to protect you. This
could be a trap to get to you.”

She pulled away from him as if his touch burned her.
Pat. She couldn’t think about that right now. Jake was all that
mattered. She’d deal with Pat later. “I don’t care. I have to help
him.”

Max gave her a look.

“Please, Max. I love him.”

Those words hung thick in the air between them. She
knew Max could never experience love. Love for him meant a skewed
perception on life. It was why he let fate lead Gabby and had not
interfered to save her. She understood that now. But he’d been born
half-human too. Adler couldn’t have stripped him of his human side.
Not all of it.

“Max, please,” she pled, ready to charge through him
when his face slackened. She knew he had bonded with Jenna. He
would’ve even shown her his real wings if she could see them.

“Let’s go.”

She followed him out and ran. On the ground, she
beat him to the house. The entrance door hung askew. Miller, the
town cop and then some, sat in a spatter of his own blood. Someone
lay at his feet. Gabby didn’t need to touch them to know they were
dead. She smelled their essence in the room, felt it stab at her
flesh. She pulled away from it.

“Jenna,” Max whispered, made eye contact for a
moment with Gabby, sniffed the air and bolted, spreading his wings
in the night.

“Jake!” Gabby called and ran upstairs. She had
allowed him into her heart and now he would die. She couldn’t let
that happen.

On the stairs a second body lay sprawled. She
hurdled over it, avoiding the pool of blood underneath, relieved
that it wasn’t Jake. A sliver of light broke through the skylight
in tendrils of shadows. Gabby pulled back from their reach, feeling
them calling to her, feeling the heat of the mark on her leg try to
break through her flesh.

She stepped into his room. Bags were still scattered
around the room. He hadn’t had time to unpack. A picture of Jenna
and him propped against an end table. It felt wrong. The energy
seeping from the walls felt wrong. She swiped at the air in front
of her, at the lights and shadows that blocked her path. They
swayed and didn’t stop her. She stepped out into the hallway just
as the window in his room exploded in a deluge of glass shards. She
dropped to the floor as a powerful wind swept through lifting and
smashing whatever wasn’t bolted to the floor. When the whirlwind
stopped, she stood up and the sheer force of shock kept her
steady.

“Pat?” she said slowly.

“Gabby,” Pat said, stepping onto the glass, ignoring
the glass shards digging into his bare feet. Dressed in black, his
blonde hair swirled behind him like a halo. He almost looked
radiant. He stopped before her, his stance balanced as if ready for
a fight. He had betrayed her.

“You will find them at the jump sight,” he whispered
with a hint of regret in his eyes.

“Mir was right not to trust you. You’re working with
Naite.” A deep regret settled in the pit of her stomach. After all
the crap he told her in the car, her fight for him in the house had
all been lies.

“Heather, Sarah, Marty...” Her pulse quickened, her
ears drummed loud in her ears. Something passed through his eyes,
almost a shadow that lingered and then faded.

“No. I had nothing to do with Marty and Heather’s
possessions,” he said, his features cinched tightly.

“But you let it happen! You knew Marty and Sarah...”
Something in her mind slipped. “You killed Father Kane?”

He bit his lip. “Yes. There are things you don’t
understand.”

“Help me understand then!” She hated the weakness of
her voice, the tears behind her eyes.

He stepped closer. “I can’t. It is not my
place.”

She took a step back. “But you’re working for Naite
now.”

He paused. “Yes.”

“What did she give you for me?” Her throat
tightened. She knew very little about Pat, and the little she did
know came from Max. He had been banished, his wings stripped and
left to walk as a Fallen. She didn’t blame his resentment and hate
for Max and his kind. She’d felt the same on some occasions, so she
befriended Pat. Another wrong choice.

“She gave me Elle.”

Before the words left his lips, Gabby lunged at him.
She struck him across the jaw and he stumbled back. He didn’t make
a move for her, though she wanted him to. She willed him too. His
face tightened and still he did not move for her. “Get out of
here,” she hissed.

He cocked his head, listening to the beating of the
wind and jumped out the window, disappearing into the night.

She couldn’t think about Pat now. The betrayal hurt
more than she expected. Saving Jake was all that mattered. She took
a deep breath as her mind settled, and then opened to all the
elements around her.

Once her focus remained in the moment, she went back
to the landing and found Jake’s cell phone lying on the floor,
open. She had meant to tell Jake everything, to tell him she loved
him. She may have missed her chance. She picked it up, feeling the
smooth surface. She put the phone in her pocket and started down
the stairs, slowly guiding her hands above the banister and letting
her fingertips hover over the surface until finally she settled it
on the cold wood.

Images erupted around her. She saw the shadows that
leapt at them and heard the screams. She slowly walked into the
kitchen, running her fingers against every surface until the image
she was looking for slid behind her eyes.
Alexi.

Her face turned to a scowl, ravaged by a feral need
to protect Jake.

Max flew back into the house, his breathing hard. “I
lost them, but Jenna and Jake are still alive.”

Gabby met her brother’s eyes, her vision changed
from the spectrum of light, to that of darkness. “I know where they
went,” she whispered.

She ran back home, her feet pounding on the soft
sand. Adler’s car was still parked in the driveway where Pat had
left it, the keys inside. “I am going after them,” she said without
looking at him.

“Gabby, no one is here to give you back-up. You’re
going to be up against pure evil.”

“Can’t you call them? There’s a demon army up
there!”

“There’s no feed to send a message. Elle’s shop is a
sanctuary with spells and magic protecting it. They are cut off!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him.
“This is not only about you, Gabby.”

She glared at him. “I don’t care.”

“Stop it. You and Jake can never be. There is no
happy ending in this picture. He is a demon meant to lure you into
their side. You have to realize that.”

She dropped her head. She did know that. “It’s why I
have to go to him. He’s not evil, Max. He told me he loves me and I
believe him. Naite won’t be able to make him change. He still has
free will.”

“She will play him. Just the way she’s playing you.
The best thing to do is stay here. Let him face the trials without
you.”

She shrugged away from him. “I can’t leave him
there. I have to try.” Her heart hammered against her chest. She
wouldn’t let him die. She couldn’t breathe without him. She would
cease to exist.

“Okay. But we’re going to need back up. Give me time
to get the others.”

She nodded but Max did not move. “The summit near
the falls,” she whispered.

Max took off. She had no intention of waiting for
him, so she didn’t even wait for him to disappear out of sight when
she jumped into Adler’s car and raced toward the summit.

She stopped the car on the shoulder and jumped out,
slowing down when she reached the downward slope to the summit. It
had been there she saved his life, leading to their first kiss. Now
she would probably die there.

Naite chose her spot well.

She settled into an easy pace down the slope,
knowing that she wouldn’t be stopped. They had planned it
perfectly. They were leading her now. She wasn’t exactly sure how
she’d save Jake. She hadn’t thought that far ahead and regretted it
the moment she broke into the small clearing.

Eight demons stood around two large slabs of stone
set about a yard apart side by side near the cliff. Jake and Jenna
were sprawled on individual slabs. Their legs chained to the stone
while their arms were stretched above their heads, their wrists
tied to thick rope. The end of the rope was tied to two large
boulders the size of a small elephant and rested precariously on
the edge of the cliff. Alexi stood between the slabs with a wicked
smile plastered to her face.

“Well I’ll be damned. You were right. She did show
up,” Alexi said playfully to the hooded figure that stood beside
her. “I guess I lost the bet.”

Gabby turned to the hooded figure and her eyes
trailed the scars that ran along his hands and arms. “Kyle?”

He pulled off his hood and smiled. “Hello,
Gabby.”

The world became a haze and Gabby had to fight to
remain upright, pulling in energy from the elements around her.
Breathe. Breathe.
“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he snarled. “You, little miss
victim all the time. I burned because of you. Do you know how much
pain I was in? How many times I cried out to God to heal me? I made
a deal with the devil instead. They will make me immortal once I
give them you.”

“You possessed Marty, Heather. She was your
friend!”

“And my mom was my mom. It doesn’t matter
anymore.”

Gabby watched as Kyle’s face turned darker. His eyes
narrowed into two slits and she could almost see a forked tongue
behind his lips.
No. This can’t be happening.

Alexi cheered, clapping and breaking Gabby from her
thoughts.