Blood Past

chapter Twenty Six

Biggest Fear

It seemed only fitting that the sky opened up to lash hard rain down on the car as they arrived in Salton. It pelted off the bonnet like gunfire, seeming to emphasise the tense silence among Eden and her two companions. She tried not to tremble as the gates to her parent’s mansion swung open allowing them entrance. Teagan would be watching her from inside. The gravel kicked under their wheels familiarly and Eden squeezed her eyes shut, drawing in her breath, preparing herself to return to the scene of her nightmares. Stepping out into the humid night air that stung the nose with a threatening metallic scent that warned of electricity, Eden shared one last questioning look with Cyrus. He nodded, telling her to trust him.

She was trying but this seemed crazy.

Cyrus was actually sticking to Teagan’s demands. They had no other warriors, no back-up, nothing. Just the three of them walking into what was clearly a trap. The fact that he wanted Eden, Cyrus and Val, had the Princeps’ alarm bells ringing. Cyrus was pretty sure the Tribunal were involved and Teagan was more than happy to use Eden to cast a net over the Princeps and Val. When he’d told her that, Eden had argued with him. Something she had never done before. It was bad enough that Noah and Mhairi’s lives were in danger because of her, she didn’t want to be the reason Cyrus and Val, two of the most important members of The Circle, ended up in the hands of their mortal enemy.

But Cyrus seemed coldly calm and wouldn’t budge on his decision to accompany her. Eden wondered what the hell he knew that she didn’t.

Exhaling loudly and feeling weirdly naked without her katana, Eden followed Cyrus and Val up the front steps of the house to where the door lay open. Beyond the double doors they could see into the foyer, where Teagan stood grinning at them.

It took every ounce of self-control she owned not to launch herself at him like a jaguar taking down a particularly annoying and wily prey. Cyrus strode through the doorway with Val, no hesitation, no fear, and Eden, desperate to be as controlled and strong as her guardian, hurried in after him. The bright white of the foyer was immediately dimmed by the thirty or so soul eaters who leeched out of the hallway and surrounding rooms to encircle them in a wall of black-suited evil. She curled a lip at them. They looked like extras from Men In Black.

Idiotic looking or not, Eden, she whispered to herself , you’re completely outnumbered. She cast her eyes over them, trying to decide what would be the best way to attack when she didn’t have a sword.

“Babe, you look good.” Teagan smiled at her and she found herself stepping towards him so he knew she wasn’t afraid of him. “Not so sure about the eye colour but in a little while we won’t need to worry about that.”

Pulling on every ounce of hatred she had for him, Eden let it shine out of the new eyes he spoke of, not even registering his comment. “You know I’m Ankh now, Teagan. Don’t you think the race issues between us are just a little too big to overcome?” He grinned. “Haven’t lost your bite. Good to know. And the whole Ankh thing is about to become a non-issue.” He shrugged.

Eden felt her whole body seize up. She felt an ear splintering rant form in her chest and edge its way up towards her tongue but a voice suddenly whispered in her brain, telling her to stop. Teagan was enjoying this, antagonising her, drawing it out. She wouldn’t give him the damn satisfaction.

“Where’s Noah?”

As she suspected, Teagan’s face fell a little at her sidestep. He shrugged again. “He’ll go free. But first I need your boss and his little lady friend to cooperate.”

“What do you want?” Cyrus’ voice echoed around the hallway and beyond. Eden enjoyed the way Teagan’s aura seemed to deflate when faced with Cyrus’ considerable and ancient power.

Her cousin tried to cover up the falter with an arrogant sneer. “I want to inject you and Valeria with potassium chloride to incapacitate you. And before you start questioning me,” he turned and picked up a remote, pointing it at the television screen beside him, “there’s your boy and old lady, alive and well.” Noah and Mhairi flickered on the screen, handcuffed to the wall down in the basement. Eden felt her whole body move towards the screen and was glad for Valeria’s hand clamping down on her arm to stop her.

“Could be fake?” Eden tried to sound calm.

Rolling his eyes, Teagan pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial button. “Six, I need you to speak to the guy prisoner. Make it very quick though.” He snapped the cell shut and pointed at the screen.

They watched as a hulking great big soul eater stalked onto the screen, a blade in his hand.

Dawning horror hit her as he pulled the blade back and plunged it into Noah’s stomach and twisted it.

His hoarse yell echoed up the basement stairwell behind Teagan and Eden turned to her cousin with retribution blazing in her eyes. “Did I tell you how much I’m going to enjoy killing you?” Teagan snorted. “Promises, promises.”

Thankfully the soul eater who had attacked Noah was happy with just that one ripping attack. He melted off screen and Teagan switched the television off.

“So?” he asked Cyrus expectantly.

Cyrus’ gaze bore through him. “What exactly do you want with Eden?” Teagan studied him for a moment, a small smile curling his lip. “You know don’t you?”

“Where did you get it?”

“Ryan.”

“How?”

“He stole it from your house when he came for Merrit.”

Eden’s head swivelled between the two, her heart racing with an unknown horror. “What? What are you talking about?”

Laughing now at the unbanked anger in Cyrus’ eyes, Teagan shrugged. “Should I do the honours?”

“What the hell is going on?!” Eden yelled, terrified that Teagan had managed to unsettle the Princeps.

Her cousin slid a hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out a tattered journal that looked a million years old. “These are your Princeps’ scribblings.” He pointed the yellow pages at her. “Notes taken from the theories of an Egyptian Voodoo Priestess who communed with the gods. In them she discusses the Unforeseen. You wanna hear the really interesting part?” He grinned cockily at her and Eden knew… she knew… something terrible was about to be revealed. “If it be truth that the Unforeseen transform to warrior with the ingress of blood of the line into the form, then so it be truth that death of the line, before seven years after blood assimiliation, kills the warrior and welcomes soul taker to form.”

Eden blinked, shaking her head stupidly. “What the hell does that mean?” The malicious smile on Teagan’s face made her want to throw up. “It means that if the person who gave you the blood that transformed you to Ankh – that would be Mhairi – dies before seven years after the transition, her blood inside you dies too and you turn back to one of the Blessed.” His eyes were alight with excitement at the prospect.

She felt as if she had been stabbed through the gut. It took every ounce of strength she had not to let her knees buckle beneath her. “Seven…” she whispered incredulously.

“Yeah, it’s some Egyptian thing. Seven planets, seven years of plenty, of famine, constellation crap yaddah yaddah yaddah. The important thing, Paradise, it means I get you back.” Pure terror and fury exploded out of her. “Don’t call me that!” This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. There was no way he could take away her whole life like that. “What do you want with Noah?”

She already knew what he wanted with Mhairi.

“You don’t let me kill the old gal… fine… I’ll kill your boy.” He shrugged at her, as if he were asking which cereal she’d prefer for breakfast. “What will it be, Eden? Noah or Mhairi?” The question sent a shock through her body and she glanced at Cyrus and Val for help.

“They can’t help you, Eden.” Teagan smirked. “In fact… I believe I’m waiting on them agreeing to the injection?”

To her absolute shock Eden could only look on as Cyrus and Val nodded their assent. No, she trembled visibly now. They had to help her?! They couldn’t leave her, for this to happen to her. She’d rather die than be a soul eater again.

But Noah.

An angry hot tear escaped over her lid and she swiped it furiously. Could she do it? Could she give up herself and Mhairi to save the boy she loved?

The answer horrified her.

“Cyrus?” she begged, watching as two of the soul eaters surrounding them stepped out of the circle at Teagan’s order and took needles out of their inside suit pockets. Eyes huge, she pleaded silently with Cyrus for answers as the needle plunged into his neck.

“Never fear, Eden,” he told her softly. “The Eye of Horus is always watching.” Brows furrowing, Eden racked her brain for meaning in Cyrus’ cryptic comment. What…?

“Cyrus?” she asked anxiously but his eyes were already closing.

The Eye of Horus is always watching.

The Eye of Horus…

The Eye…

She gasped, glancing up at Teagan with a gleam of triumph in her gaze. Darius! Darius was coming. She didn’t know when or how or what but somehow she knew that Darius could save them.

The power she had felt from him…

Suddenly it didn’t matter when he was going to make his appearance; simply knowing he was out there ready to help forced Eden into action. With a roar of rage she lunged towards Teagan, propelling all her power into knocking him to his feet. Hands wrapped around her cousin’s throat, Eden felt that overwhelming familiar power surge into the house even through the blaze of her hate.

It seeped through the walls and shimmered in the air, it clung to her skin and frightened her with its otherworldliness. A streak of colour shot by her and Eden jerked her head around to see the dark blur slice its way through the men. The yells of agony, grunts, flesh tearing, grew in crescendo as blood splatter sprayed against the wall, filling the foyer with the breath-stealing scent of copper.

Pain ricocheted through Eden’s jaw, tearing her eye as she fell backwards.

Damn! she screamed inwardly in rage as Teagan punched her and flipped her onto her back. She shot her leg up between his legs but he expected the move and sidestepped. It was enough to give Eden the space to roll away from and to her feet. She ignored the crazy massacre in the background, her entire focus on bringing her cousin down once and for all. She thought of the men and women he’d killed. The torture. The rape. The sadism that was beyond humane thinking. She thought of how he’d made her endure his crimes. How she hadn’t been strong enough to stop him.

Well… now she was.

Trying to remember all she’d learned over the last few weeks, Eden began to pace around him, waiting, with a patience she never knew she was capable of, for him to attack first. When the powerful punch came Eden reacted fluidly, sidestepping, grabbing his wrist, twisting it, pounding her knee into the weak part of his upper thigh, pushing him down, pulling his arm up. Snap.

His harsh scream didn’t fill Eden with the satisfaction she’d thought she’d feel.

A strange mix of desolation and relief crashed over her as she realised she wasn’t going to enjoy her cousin’s death as she had assumed she would. That part of her no longer existed, that part that could find some pleasure out of the darkest pieces of her heart. Yes, she wanted Teagan dead, but that’s all she wanted. She just wanted him gone. There was no joy in that. The darkness existed inside her, as it did in all things with a soul, but she no longer belonged to it. She belonged to light, a light that made her duty necessary but ugly, not something to revel in. And there was no way this piece of scum was returning to her to the dark.

Her cousin’s elbow came up and connected with her face, snapping her head back with a powerful blow. Eden staggered, hot pain blazing across her nose and down the muscles in her neck. She shook herself and readied her stance as Teagan jumped to his feet, locking his broken arm back into place.

“You’ve learned a few tricks while you’ve been gone but I could do this all day. Without a sword, you have no way of taking me down.”

As a particularly harsh scream sounded behind them, they both turned. Eden’s eyes widened in relief and… truly… fear and horror as she took in the sight of Darius standing in amongst a litter of decapitated bodies.

“What the…?” her cousin breathed behind her and for once she heard actual dread in his voice.

Darius’ face was expressionless, covered in streaks of blood, his black eyes dark and unreachable.

“Here,” he said to her and Eden blinked fast as a sword suddenly soared through the air towards her.

But just as she reached for it, a familiar arm darted out in front of her and caught it.

Noah.

Eyes wide, she took in his haggered appeared, the exhaustion from the drug still dragging in his eyes. There was blood and gore splattered over his chest and face, and a sadness in his eyes that made her heart stop.

“Mhairi’s gone,” he whispered, stepping past her and pointing the sword at Teagan. “She got me out but one of his thugs killed her.” He slanted a gaze at her. “You don’t have to do this. I can do it for you. With pleasure.”

“What do you mean the old bitch is dead?!” Teagan spat, his eyes flaring as they washed over Eden. “You should be changing! Why the hell aren’t you changing?”

“Because,” Darius omniscient voice echoed behind them, “you read the scripture wrong. All of the immediate bloodline must die in order to reverse Eden’s transition.” As relief poured through her, Teagan launched at them.

“Noah!” she shouted, stepping back and giving him the go-ahead.

At the change in Noah’s demeanour – Eden could see it took everything he had to pull his energy together to face her cousin - wariness entered Teagan’s grey eyes and he stepped back, readying himself. Noah nodded at him, his silent words telling him that this was how it was always going to end between them. Teagan’s jaw clenched as it did when he disagreed with someone, a creature blinded by his obsession.

Teagan slid back from Noah’s swings but Noah kept on him, cutting the sword through the air near her cousin’s flesh until he had him backed into a corner. At one last attempt to save himself, Teagan threw his body at Noah. Noah dropped to the floor and Teagan stumbled past him, coming up to turn to face him and finding the edge of his blade instead. Relief washed over Eden, perhaps even some satisfaction. But as she’d come to realise only moments before, there was no pleasure.

Teagan’s headless body had barely hit the floor before Noah dropped to the ground, the sword clattering out of his hands. Eden hurried over to him, falling to her knees before him, cradling his face in her trembling hands. “You’re OK?” she whispered.

He nodded, his eyes washing over her face. “I couldn’t save her.” Blinking back tears at the thought Mhairi’s demise and the awful task that lay before her of informing Tobe and her parents, Eden shook her head. “Don’t. Not your fault.” His bitter smile told her he felt differently.

Choking on tears Eden stood to her feet, dragging Noah to his and holding on to him. She turned to face the ancient Ankh who stood hovering over Cyrus and Val’s unconscious forms, a carnage of gory, bloody, pulpy, grisly unreality all around them. Limbs and heads and inside and entrails spilled across the floor and walls and Eden found herself swallowing back vomit. She focused her eyes on the warrior who had created the carnage, desperate to get the imagery out of her head. “We better get out of here. The Tribunal might be on their way.”

Darius actually nodded in agreement. “I suspect you might be right. I will help you get Cyrus and Valeria out of here before I leave.”

She nodded, unsure of how to speak to this man, this… whatever he was… “I’d appreciate it.

Could you… we need to return Mhairi’s body to her family.” Darius nodded. “I will take care of it, rest assured.”

As they hefted Cyrus and Valeria up off the floor in the foyer Eden could tell even Noah was shocked by the scene. He met Eden’s eyes with a hollowness she’d never seen before. She shook her head, too afraid of Darius to make a comment.

“There,” Darius huffed, throwing Cyrus none too gently into the back seat with Val. “Will you two be alright from here without me?”

“Um…”

The ancient warrior jerked a hand back to the house. “I have a little cleaning up to do.” He winked at her. He actually frickin’ winked at her!

“Sure,” Eden agreed quickly, helping Noah into the passenger seat. “I can take it from here.” Gravel shot up and cracked against Cyrus’ paintwork as Eden sped out of the driveway but she didn’t give a rat’s ass. At this point, she wasn’t sure who she was more afraid of. The Tribunal.

Or Cyrus’ best friend.