Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) (5 page)

I fought hard to keep any discernible emotion out of my eyes.
Despite our undeniable connection, Bishop wasn’t my boyfriend. I had no real
claim on him at all.

I mean, I didn’t even know his real name.

That’s what my brain knew—that Bishop wasn’t mine.

My heart, however, had a totally different opinion on the
subject.

Before anyone could say anything else, the side door clanged
shut and a few seconds later, Zach and Connor entered the church sanctuary with
us.

Great,
I thought drily.
The gang’s all here.

Zach was tall and thin, with red hair, freckles on his nose and
clear, green eyes. He was kind and thoughtful, and typically did the healing in
the group. I knew this from personal experience. Connor was an inch or two
shorter, with dark skin, and hair so short I considered it shaved. He always had
a joke to help lighten the mood. The two had forged a close friendship since
they arrived, and usually went out on patrol together.

“Patrol” was the term for their endless city walks in search of
grays who’d lost their minds, their control, who were so driven by their hunger
that they became a true and monstrous threat to anyone they crossed paths with.
Those grays were targeted for death—their bodies swept away to the Hollow after
the deed was done. The golden dagger wasn’t required to kill a gray. They might
be supernatural, but they were still mortal.

If I gave in to the kiss much more, I’d also become one of
those zombie grays. Which was why what had happened with Colin had frightened me
so much. Once a gray turned to that zombie state, there was no coming back from
it. The horrible thought of losing myself completely kept me awake at night
staring at my ceiling with my sheets pulled right up to my neck.

“We have a visitor,” Connor said with surprise as he noticed
Cassandra—and it was very hard not to notice the beautiful blonde. “Hi, there.
I’m Connor.”

“A pleasure.” She nodded.

Zach’s previous smile faded at the edges as his gaze widened
with recognition. “Cassandra.”

“Zachary. I’m glad to see you made it here all right.”

“Stupid ritual.”

“Totally agree.” She smiled warmly at him. “So this is the
entire team?”

“It is,” Bishop confirmed.

“Why are you here?” Zach asked her.

“The same reason as the rest of you. To lend a hand with a
difficult situation.”

“Of course.”

She chewed her bottom lip—which struck me as a nervous gesture.
It surprised me that she and Zach already knew each other, although I wasn’t
sure why. Angels would be associated with each other on some level in Heaven,
kind of like going to a big high school. Not everybody knew everyone else, but
there were those you saw every day, some you made friends with, some
you...didn’t.

I got the strange feeling that these two weren’t exactly best
friends.

“Will you be staying with us here at the church?” Zach
asked.

Cassandra swept her gaze around the sanctuary, ending with
Roth. Her expression soured. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on,” Roth said, grinning darkly. “We can be
bunkmates.”

“Definitely not.” She looked at me. “I’ll stay with
Samantha.”

I stared at her. “I...uh, I’m not sure that’s such a good
idea.”

“Of course it is.”

I cast a look at Bishop, hoping for backup.

There was amusement in his gaze at her suggestion, which didn’t
bode well. “I think it’s a good idea. Cassandra can watch over you at night when
I’m not around. You’ll be safe from any more...potential problems.”

Kraven snorted again. Honestly, I’d think the demon had a head
cold if I didn’t know better. “Right. Wouldn’t want you to have problems,
sweetness. That story doesn’t have a happily ever after.”

Bishop shot him a look. “That’s not what I meant.”

The demon waved a dismissive hand. “I wouldn’t know. I barely
listen to anything you ever say.”

Don’t fight this,
I told myself.
Go with the flow.
Don’t raise any alarms, not after what happened at
Crave.

“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Wouldn’t want to be a
problem.”

“Way too late for that,” Roth mumbled.

“Before you go, Cassandra...” Bishop beckoned for her to join
him on the other side of the sanctuary. I watched them with a tight feeling in
my chest, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore.

Zach moved to stand next to me and he scrubbed a hand through
his short, red hair as he also watched the two beautiful angels in their
tête-à-tête.

I glanced at him. “So you and Cassandra know each other,
huh?”

“Yeah.”

I twisted my index finger into my hair, pulling tight enough to
squeeze off my circulation. “I bet when she was human she was, like, a
cheerleader. One who stole other girls’ boyfriends. I mean...not that this
observation is relevant right now or anything. I’m just saying.”

He grinned at my babblings before the expression faded. “She
wasn’t human. She’s one of the hosts.”

I blinked. “One of the what?”

“She was created as an angel.”

I stared at him with shock. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really.”

“Is...is that how it normally is? Or are angels usually human
first?”

“They try to keep it balanced.”

“Right. Balance. Can’t forget that.” I worked it over in my
head. “How does it happen? Like, do you do enough good deeds in real life and
you’re given the job when you die?”

“Pretty much. For me, I saved a kid from drowning. Saved him,
but managed to drown myself in the process. I was only a week from graduating
from Harvard top of my class. My father always wanted that more than
anything—for me to be a lawyer just like him. He was so obsessed with my grades
and my...my future. Sometimes I wonder if he’d approve of what I did become.” He
glanced at me guiltily. “Sorry, sometimes I still dwell on my past.”

“Dwell away. Believe me, I totally get the parent angst. I’ve
lived it all my life.” It was crazy hearing someone talk about their own death,
but he said it so matter-of-factly that I found I was able to take it in stride.
“When was that? When did you, uh...die?”

“Fifty years ago, give or take. And, yes, I was given the
chance when I died to choose between eternal rest or eternal...work.” He
shrugged. “I guess I like to keep busy. Never enjoyed taking vacations, anyway.
Such a waste of time.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that, but I quickly sobered.
Fifty years ago.
And he still looked so young. Wow.
“So what happens to your body?”

“We get to keep our human bodies, which are resurrected and
healed so they’re even better and stronger than before.” He frowned. “It’s hard
to explain if you haven’t experienced it personally. Anyway, our mortal bodies
then go through a very intense transition to become celestial and immortal. That
part isn’t fun.”

That was when they’d give up their human souls and gain any
special abilities as they were transformed into their angelic selves.

In two minutes I’d gotten more information about life as an
angel from Zach than I’d gotten from Bishop in two weeks. I was both stunned and
grateful for anything I could learn. Now I knew Zach was the go-to guy for stuff
like this.

“What about Bishop?” I whispered. “Do you know his story?”

Kraven shot a look at me as he rose from the pew. I wasn’t sure
if he was close enough to hear me and Zach talking. He gestured at Roth for them
to leave, which they did. I figured they were sick of waiting and they wanted to
go patrol. Connor swung into a pew halfway up the aisle.

Zach didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m not sure I want to know
his story.”

I tensed. “Why?”

“Heard a few things about him before I left. He wasn’t well
liked. There were many who believed he didn’t deserve his placement as an
angel.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the truth. All I know is he was a
workaholic...really driven. He took every assignment given to him without any
argument as if he was trying to prove something. Frankly, I expected him to be a
real dick. Maybe the fall knocked a lot of that attitude out of him. But knowing
Bishop and Kraven were brothers once...” He sent a look toward the enigmatic
angel in question. “I mean, it does make me wonder.”

Me, too. I wondered way too much about the two of them and what
it all meant. It had become a driving need inside of me to get to the bottom of
the mystery of how and why one brother became a demon and the other an
angel.

“Do me a favor, Samantha,” Zach said.

“Sure,” I replied, now distracted. “Of course. What?”

“Don’t fall in love with him.”

My gaze shot to his, and my cheeks immediately heated up.
“Excuse me?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Love...well, it makes
people do crazy things, even if they’re not crazy to begin with. I don’t want to
see you get hurt.”

I bit my bottom lip so hard I nearly drew blood. Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw Cassandra give Bishop a hug.

A freaking
hug.

I swallowed hard. “Any other sage advice tonight, Zach?”

“Yeah.” He leaned closer so he could lower his voice to a
whisper. “Be careful with Cassandra, too. Hosts are driven by their
missions—they take them more seriously than anything else and never question
their orders. It’s why they were created—to serve Heaven in any way required. I
don’t know why they sent her, but no matter what she might claim, I know it’s
for something more than just tagging along on patrol with us.”

It was all he said before Cassandra was there in front of me,
ready to leave. I craned my neck to see Bishop again, but she whisked me out of
the church before I even had the chance to say goodbye.

Chapter 5

Cassandra had decided to stay with me. At my house. And
I seemed to have no choice in the matter.

It made me mad. This wasn’t a friend I wanted to help out. This
was an uninvited problem that had barged into my life. If she was just a girl
from school I would do my best to avoid her, but she wasn’t.

She might look every bit as harmless as I did, but she was far
from it.

I eyed her warily as we walked away from St. Andrew’s and back
toward downtown, the outline of the tall office buildings and St. Edward’s
Trinity Hospital a glowing beacon in the distance. I drew my coat closer to try
to block out the constant chill that made me shiver violently. This was the
abandoned part of town, what was once rather industrial, but after the economy
tanked a while back, a lot of stores and businesses went bankrupt and shut down.
I would definitely think twice about walking around here alone at night—or even
with a friend. But Cassandra wasn’t defenseless. She might be blonde and pretty,
but she was every bit a warrior as the other guys. Maybe more so.

To tell the truth, she freaked me out.

“You know,” she said after we’d walked in silence for nearly
fifteen minutes. “I am getting the distinct impression that you don’t like me
very much.”

Unfortunately, I wore my emotions on my face thicker than any
makeup.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” she added.

I swallowed hard. “I’m not afraid.”

Freaked out wasn’t afraid. It was
freaked
out.

“If Bishop says you can resist your hungers, then I’m perfectly
fine accepting his assessment. To me, you’re the same as any other human. Just a
little more interesting.”

“I’m
not
afraid,” I said again,
firmer.

She smiled at that. “If you say so.”

I needed to gain some sort of control here—even if I was only
fooling myself. This was going to be a long walk and I’d spent all my bus money
on the plate of nachos at the club as well as the cover charge to get in. I’d
had no idea I’d be needing to find another way home other than with Sabrina and
Kelly.

But here we were. Me hoofing it home on uncomfortable high
heels with my new housemate, Cassandra the Perfect Blonde Angel.

“Zach tells me you’re a host,” I said. I was making the
assumption it wasn’t a secret. He hadn’t said it was.

She raised an eyebrow. “And do you know what that means?”

Yeah, that I should watch you carefully
for your hidden agenda.
“You weren’t human first. You were created as
an angel.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s hard for me to wrap my head around. No parents. No
siblings...not that I have siblings. But, I mean, most people do.” Like Bishop
and Kraven, who came immediately and vividly to mind.

She crossed her arms, keeping her gaze on the sidewalk
stretching before us. “It’s not as sterile an existence as you might think. I
have a sibling—or someone I consider my sibling. She was created at the same
time as me. We’re like sisters.”

“Oh.” Yes, that was my fabulously snappy comeback.

There were some people you felt totally comfortable around.
Like Carly, for instance. We knew each other so well we could basically finish
each other’s sentences. Also, we didn’t have to be constantly talking. It was a
comfortable silence.

I didn’t have that with Cassandra. With her it was
uncomfortable
silence. One that pressed in on all
sides like those collapsing rooms in sci-fi movies, threatening to squish the
heroine into something the width of a piece of paper.

“Your supernatural intuition has helped the team,” she said.
“I’m grateful that Bishop found you.”

“More like the other way around.”

She looked at me with surprise. “You found him?”

I nodded, thinking back to that night—which was wonderful since
I’d met Bishop, but also horrible because, well...I’d met Bishop. He represented
the best and worst moments of my life, all in such a short time.

“He was having difficulties keeping his thoughts under
control.” That was putting it extremely mildly. “Our paths crossed. We realized
that when I touched him his mind cleared.”

“Incredible. You must be an asset to the team.”

I shrugged. Kraven’s earlier words echoed in my head:
don’t try buttering me up now, Blondie.
“I want to
help if I can.”

“Now he’s taken to inflicting pain on himself to get the same
result.”

I grimaced. “He has to stop that.”

“I agree. It’s barbaric. But I do have to wonder how he
realized such a thing would work for him.”

I’d wondered it, too, at first. But I think I’d figured it
out.

Bishop must have realized that pain from the dagger helped
clear his head when he’d been tortured by the Source of the grays—who just
happened to have been my demon aunt, Natalie, my birth father Nathan’s sister.
This was another fact that nobody on the team knew but Bishop.

My aunt was anomalous—a demon with a scary glitch created in
the conversion from human to infernal being. She had a disturbing taste for
human souls and had been branded a problem that needed to be dealt with,
especially since souls, both light and dark, were essential to helping keep the
universal balance. She was tossed into the Hollow still alive as her punishment.
Nathan, too, had an anomaly—according to what Natalie had told me, he could kill
with a touch by absorbing life energy.

Seventeen years later, Natalie escaped and arrived here in
Trinity. Her strange ability had evolved. Now she was able to create more
creatures with her hunger through the “kiss.” And they could do the same. Like a
contagious disease. That was why there was a barrier up, so none of us
“infected” could spread this disease to the rest of the world. It was an
invisible citywide quarantine that would be here till we were all gone.

Natalie had known who I was. And being that I was the daughter
of a demon and an angel, she thought that my nexus abilities could help her on
her path of destruction and revenge. To do so, she got Stephen to remove my soul
in a single kiss. She’d used the metaphor of removing a lid from a box. The soul
was the lid keeping my supernatural abilities closed off to me. As soon as it
was removed, the contents of this strange and scary box were finally revealed.
She’d also promised that she was the only one who could lead me to my birth
father, who still existed...somewhere. I figured he was still trapped in the
Hollow.

And yet, even though she presented this “upgrade” to me as
something good and beneficial, I still had to deal with the hunger of a gray.
She’d told me she believed these hungers would fade for me since I wasn’t
totally human to begin with.

The evil woman was a liar about many things.

A week had passed since she’d been killed, and, if anything, my
hunger was even worse than before.

So Natalie failed. She died before I could learn more
information about my birth father’s whereabouts. But before she was killed she’d
used Bishop’s dagger to carve him up as duress to get me to do what she wanted.
It nearly worked. I’d been very close to doing anything to make her stop
torturing Bishop. That must have been when he’d realized that injuries from the
dagger would chase away his growing confusion.

“Are you all right?” Cassandra touched my arm, snapping me out
of the horrible memory.

“Yeah, fine.” I inhaled shakily and looked up at the sky. It
was clear and black and studded with stars. My eyes burned, but I swallowed back
my tears.

I tried to put on a brave face, but this was all still very new
to me. I’d gone from being a normal high school student trying to keep a high
average in order to ensure a bright future—to not knowing if I’d have a future
at all.

Fear was not a friend. All it did was weaken me. I couldn’t let
myself be weak.

And I flatly refused to be afraid of this angel. I refused to
be afraid of my future.
I
was in control here. I’d
find Stephen and everything would be better again. My life would never revert
completely to what I’d thought of as normal, but it would give me time to figure
everything out. And it would give me a chance to find Carly again. If my aunt
had managed to escape from the Hollow, then she damn well could, too.

I needed to change the subject to something more productive.
Immediately.

“Can Bishop be helped?” I asked. “He’s not supposed to have
fallen. Somebody messed with him. But he gives me the impression this is
permanent.”

“There are only a few angels gifted with the ability to burn a
new soul into a fallen one. It’s not a process that is typically reversed.”

“But it was a mistake! They have to make an exception for
him.”

“I completely agree and I hope that’s what they’ll choose to
do.” Her brows drew together. “He’s dealing with these difficulties with
admirable grace and strength. He’s rather amazing, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. He is.” I agreed with everything she said, but it still
rubbed me the wrong way that she was so impressed by him. I kicked my jealous
thoughts into the corner like a pair of dirty socks and tried to ignore them.
They weren’t helping. Also, they smelled bad.

We’d finally emerged from the dark and abandoned neighborhood
containing the church. This was more populated, more active, with a main road up
ahead and lines of restaurants. It wasn’t far from the shopping district known
as the Promenade.

Still at least another twenty minutes before we got to my
house, though.

I had to keep extra money in my purse for bus fare from now on.
Like, seriously. I enjoyed a good walk, the chance to clear my head and get some
fresh air, but this was ridiculous.

We passed a couple homeless people sitting with their backs
against the fronts of closed-up shops. I scanned their faces quickly, but
neither one was the homeless person I’d been searching for.

There was a man named Seth somewhere in this city. Just like
Bishop, he was a fallen angel, one who’d fallen a long time ago. I knew he could
give insight and help if I introduced him to the team, but I hadn’t seen any
sign of him in a week. I’d started to think that maybe he’d just been my
imagination.

No, he wasn’t. He was real. Carly had met him, too.

I’ll find you, Seth. I swear I will. I
need to talk to you again.

Cassandra slowed to a halt, studying an amorous couple on the
side street we’d turned down. The streetlamps cast spooky shadows on the
sidewalks and brick walls.

“It’s not polite to stare at people making out,” I told
her.

“Is that what they’re doing?”

“Yeah, I mean...” But I stopped talking. At first glance, I’d
assumed they were doing just that—two people kissing passionately, so into each
other that they ignored the world around them.

But at second glance...

Before I could say anything or do anything, Cassandra walked
directly toward the couple and grabbed hold of the man’s arm.

He broke off the kiss and turned to face her. His eyes were
black, his skin so pale in the darkness that it seemed luminescent.

He was a gray.

I turned my horrified gaze to his girlfriend—or, victim,
rather—who looked just as Colin had earlier. Glazed, dazed, with the telltale
black lines branching around her mouth. She collapsed to the ground.

No one but us had witnessed this. We were fifty feet from the
main road.

The gray looked to be in his early twenties, and was handsome
when his pallor returned to normal and his eyes shifted back to human.

“Can I help you?” he asked calmly, wiping his hand over his
mouth to remove traces of his victim’s lipstick.

Cassandra’s hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. “I
know what you are.”

“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow at the blonde angel who’d
stopped him from continuing his dark kiss.

The girl who’d fallen to the ground wasn’t moving. Her eyes
remained glazed, and she wasn’t snapping out of it as Colin thankfully had. The
black lines remained around her mouth.

“Oh, God. No,” I whispered.

This gray had taken her entire soul in that kiss, and she
hadn’t been strong enough to survive it.

“She’s dead,” I said, louder. My stomach convulsed. “You killed
her!”

“Too bad,” he said without emotion. “She was very tasty.”

Cassandra’s eyes flashed with rage. “You’re evil. A plague upon
this city. Upon this entire world. You must be destroyed.”

He laughed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

She didn’t pull out a weapon, but she stalked closer to him. I
held my breath, watching, trying not to look at the dead girl again. I hadn’t
seen anything like this before. I’d seen the kiss before, I’d been guilty of the
kiss myself, but I’d never seen it kill anyone.

This was proof that it could. That what I was, and what I could
do—that this ravenous hunger I felt every hour of every day—was one hundred
percent evil.

I felt no pity for this gray. Instead, all I felt was rage. I
wanted Cassandra to kill him right here and right now. She was a warrior like
the others; there was no doubt in my mind about that.

But as she drew closer to him, the gray watched her with open
amusement. “You’re one of the people I’ve been hearing about. The ones trying to
stop us from having any fun in this town.”

She launched herself at him, her hands out as if prepared to
grab his throat and strangle him. But with a flick of his wrist, he backhanded
her. It was so hard that she went flying through the air and hit the wall on the
opposite side of the street with a violent smacking sound.

Cassandra crumpled to the ground unconscious.

I spun to face the gray, stunned. “What did you—?”

He grinned at me. “Impressed?”

I rushed toward Cassandra and snatched a jagged piece of wood
from the side of the road, holding it in front of me.