Stained

  The Nephilim smiled at Julia. Cayne stepped up behind him, slitting his throat. Panting hard and bleeding from a swollen lip, Cayne blinked at the biker’s body, then turned slowly around. “Rosa?”

  The woman had pushed herself into a half-sitting position, and she was holding her son in her lap. “The blood of…my killer has reached my heart. His poison has done its work.” Rosa coughed. “There’s no help…now.”

  Cayne crouched over Malachi. The great Nephilim was still drawing breath, but it was slow and laborious. Cayne looked anguished as he knelt by the seer. “Rosa, I’m so sorry.”

  The woman tried to smile. “You should be.”

  Cayne blinked, and the woman laughed weakly. “The only thing we can govern, Cayne, is our choices.”

  “Then let Julia heal you.”

  “No. My place is with my son.”

  Julia watched the woman’s beautiful pearly aura wane. It wouldn’t be long. Cayne closed his eyes and placed a hand over the seer’s wrist. Julia took the woman’s other hand, and together they sat, quiet on the rug, until Rosa’s light died.

  Cayne stared at the woman’s face.

  Julia felt as desolate as he looked.

  “We need to go,” he said quietly.

  He helped Julia up and tucked her under his arm.

  “Can we go out the front? My shoes…” Julia felt ridiculous, but with tears already streaming down her face, she thought she’d really lose it if she had to part with her last tie to Suzanne.

  “Yeah,” Cayne murmured.

  They put on their shoes, Cayne expressionless, Julia trying not to sob, and moved together onto the porch. The instant her feet touched the cement, Julia saw something large and black out of the corner of her eye. After that, everything happened very quickly.

  Cayne was tossed aside, and Julia felt strong hands under her arms. She screamed as Samyaza lifted her off the ground, swinging her like a rag doll as they rose above the house. Julia fought to push past panic and call for Cayne, now on his feet. She screamed his name and watched him leap into the sky.

  Wings seemed to spring from his back—the glossy charcoal feathers of her dreams—but Samyaza was flying high and fast, and too soon Cayne was just a dot.

  Rooftops shrank to colored cubes amid big black veins of asphalt. Julia went limp, torn between a clawing desire to fight and her paralyzing fear of being dropped.

  Then her brain sped up to realize Samyaza would definitely kill her, and he would use her as bait to get Cayne. Julia thought falling to her death would be better, but it wouldn’t come to that anyway because Cayne would save her. She trusted him with fanatical surety.

  And so, more than a thousand feet above the ground, Julia pulled Cayne’s dagger from her jeans and stabbed Samyaza in the arm.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Samyaza’s attack made Cayne summersault before his head smacked the concrete porch. He watched as cement chunks bottle-rocketed away from the impact. Then the pain came: hot-cold-intense, like a smoldering iron through the ear.

  Cayne was up in an instant, his charcoal wings ripping through his shirt as the patio crumbled, his legs leaping before his first cut bled.

  He was certain Samyaza was going to kill Julia. The older Nephilim couldn’t outfly him with the extra weight, but he could snap her neck. He could grin his stark white grin as he dropped her lifeless body.

  Cayne crossed two hundred feet with one flap of his wings. Then three hundred.

  Julia was struggling, her face shifting between horror and determination. Her eyes were focused, but her lips trembled and her nostrils flared. She stretched, and Cayne’s dagger edged toward Samyaza. It met flesh. Samyaza reeled. She fell.

  Cayne threw his momentum over his head, looped in mid-air, and thrust his body toward her falling form, speeding, a whirl, the wind screaming, Samyaza yelling, Julia lounging on air, her body relaxed, waiting.

  She fell into his arms, locked her legs around his waist, and buried her face in his shoulder. Her long, dark hair danced under his nose, and everything was vanilla and honey.

  Cayne drew her closer. “Hang on.”

  He felt her body tense as he plunged, as the clouds blurred behind them and the earth sped to meet them. When they touched down beside a grove of spindly trees, Cayne glanced up over his shoulder. Samyaza was hovering. Waiting. Cayne wiped Samyaza’s blood from Julia’s cheek and clutched her face. “You need to go,” he told her sternly. “Find a place to hide. Somewhere public. Somewhere Samyaza wouldn’t—”

  “No!” She jerked away from him, tripping as she did and falling on her butt. Cayne tugged her up and pulled her to his chest. Her eyes were brown—the color of chocolate—and they were big and angry as they stared up at him.

  “Did you see what just happened? I’m better off with you than by myself. Unless you want to get rid of me!”

  “Julia, I only want to keep you safe.”

  “You’re doing fine.” She glanced up at the gray-blue clouds where Samyaza hung, and Cayne felt a roiling wave of remorse.

  “You’re never safe with him on your tail. I could focus on distracting him while you try to figure out who the Stained are.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished. “I’ll take my chances with you. Unless you don’t want me.” She might have said “to.” Unless you don’t want me to. But that’s not how he heard it.

  “I do,” he murmured—soft and foreign. And found, with a bite of shock, how much he meant it.

  Cayne brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Then he summoned his dagger and leapt, covering a thousand feet in three quick beats of his wings.

  “You remain swift,” Samyaza called as Cayne neared. “But this race is about more than speed.”

  Samyaza flew to the left and, snarling, Cayne followed.

  “How many lives do you have, Cayuzul?” Samyaza taunted.

  Cayne lunged for his enemy, but the Nephilim king spun away from the attack. He brought his feet down on Cayne’s right wing, and for a moment the sky and earth spun. With difficulty, Cayne righted himself. He hovered in front of Samyaza, struggling not to harm him. “Why did you hunt me three years ago?”

  The Nephilim king scowled. “You ask questions that should not need answers.”

  “I don’t know any answers—because of you! Why did you steal my memories?”

  Samyaza’s brow furrowed. “Cayuzul.”

  “I said why!”

  Something like disbelief crossed the Nephilim lord’s ancient face. “What is it you think I did?”

  “You know what you did!”

  Samyaza grinned cruelly. “I scarcely believe it is true. You have no memories?” He laughed, a rich, low sound. “Then how have you come to hunt me?”

  Cayne circled his enemy. “When I woke I knew you’d harmed me. I knew I’d kill you before I knew my own name.”

  Samyaza’s smile was taunting. “Yes, I hunted you. But not even I possess the power to take one’s past.”

  “Liar!” Cayne’s hand sliced the air. “Tell me why!”

  “Because you broke your oath. Because you ran,” Samyaza sneered. “Because you hid.”

  Samyaza’s body stretched and thinned, blinked in and out of focus. Cayne shook his head as his enemy’s face morphed into Cayne’s own. His youth shone in his wide green eyes. He stood in a Victorian-style home, watching a married couple at the dinner table. Watching them retire to their bedroom.

  Samyaza was goading him—again. And this time…

  Their blood was his paint, their bed his canvas. One stroke wet the brush, three more finished his masterpiece. Against the grays and whites, red was alone and beautiful.

  “You stank of humanity then, and you stink of it now. Hunters are steel, never yielding, never breaking. You are a weed to be plucked.”

  An image came—another time, another place: A cabin door opened, and two amber eyes peaked in.

  Through a haze of blood he saw her face, tender
and forgiving. He saw her hair, her skin, her teeth, her lips, her breasts, her toes, her thighs, her navel, her hips. He smelled her, heard the ghost of her laugh. A whisper, a touch, a fire. They were curled up in the rocking chair, watching the snow fall. And then blood. Her blood, spilled by the bucketful, staining the snow. Rage blinding like the sun.

  Cayne choked on a sob. Through the cacophony in his head, Samyaza’s laughter. Louder and louder. As her clothes are torn. As he pleads for her life. As she screams her last breath as her eyes promise love as her blood drips from his hands—

  And he remembered.

  He remembered everything.

  Reality returned with horrible clarity and his rage consumed him. Everything was red as he burst toward Samyaza. Cayne sliced his enemy across the gut, then through the shoulder. He stabbed him in the leg, the arm, the chest. He readied his killing blow, but Samyaza was able to twist free. He darted away and Cayne followed, down left right up down right; they crisscrossed the sky.

  Then Samyaza’s knife was an inch from Cayne’s eye and he had to tumble to avoid it.

  Samyaza hovered, watching, a thick coat of sweat glistening across his shaved head. His wounds were already healing, a testament to his incredible power.

  Cayne panted as his mind lost its hold on the tide of memories. It was a tsunami of blood.

  And failure. His sin. Her death.

  Samyaza watched as Cayne drifted, coasting on the air. Distantly, Cayne wondered why the über Nephilim did not finish what he had started. Under the onslaught of emotion, he would almost have welcomed it.

  But his mentor only swooped down, drifting in front of him, his face a grim mask as Cayne’s heart raced. “You killed her,” he said, his voice ragged and weak.

  “She was our enemy.”

  “I loved her!”

  Samyaza shook his head. “What’s done is done. Now we must consider what is to come.”

  “Fuck you.” Cayne gasped. He blinked against tears that would not come. Tears she never saw. “You—”

  “Did what had to be done.” There was no anger in Samyaza’s voice, and no regret. “You knew the consequence.”

  “I betrayed nothing.”

  “You betrayed me!”

  Screaming, Cayne lunged again, a sloppy attack Samyaza easily evaded.

  “Why don’t you kill me now!”

  Samyaza’s wings beat impatiently as he rose out of Cayne’s reach. “As long as you are with one of them, you will always be pursued. You too have become stained.”

  Samyaza flew up and away; Cayne, lost in the rhythm of his sorrow, did not follow.

  *

  His mind was an anchor, pulling him down. He saw the first stars peek through their blanket of blue and remembered the day he showed her his wings.

  She was in awe. In awe and angry he had never shown her before. She wanted a flight and he was happy—no, eager—to take her. He’d laughed and swooped her off her feet, and a moment later she was shrieking as they soared through the inky sky.

  His heart was an anchor, pulling him down. To her smile. To her voice. She was calling him. She was...

  Julia was yelling, Cayne realized. Loudly. And waving. He hung in the air for a moment, smoothing the rhythm of his breathing, bringing the world back into focus. Then he let himself slip into a free-fall that landed him almost on top of a tree.

  Julia ran over as he struggled to his feet, nearly paralyzed by the fierce clamp around his throat and chest. She was frantic, reaching for him. He moved away.

  “Cayne! Please talk to me! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why are you acting so out of it?”

  “I...I’m sorry.” He set his mouth and murmured, “Hit my head.”

  “Oh God. Did he hurt you bad?” Resting one hand gently on his arm, Julia immediately began to probe his aura. Cayne could sense surprise, and he resisted the impulse to push her away; she couldn’t peer into his mind. He tried to relax as she healed his wounds.

  “Thanks.” His voice was hoarse, and her eyes were skeptical. Her mouth stuck somewhere between a smile and a frown. “Is everything okay?”

  He nodded, hoping she hadn’t felt the trembling he didn’t seem able to stop. Each shiver was a memory. The onslaught was unyielding. “Are you?” he asked her.

  “Oh, abducted by a flying madman, flown hundreds of feet into the air, dropped. No big deal.”

  He tried to smile, but he must have done a terrible job of it, because she was worried all over again. “Cayne, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. What a liar.

  She reached up and touched his temple. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Me too,” he said thickly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Julia smiled. And then her eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe I’ve never seen your wings!”

  Cayne forced something past the lump in his throat. “They…never came up.”

  “That’s not the sort of thing that has to come up! You should have told me.” Julia crossed her arms. “It’s my job to know all your secrets.”

  And oh—how he hoped it really wasn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  For several hours, not a cloud had marred the sky as they soared over the moon-drenched earth.

  At first Julia seemed content just to ride on his back, her arms around his neck. She said nothing about his silence and the shivers that wracked his body. But as moments became minutes, and minutes stretched to an hour, Cayne’s reticence became evident. He tried to participate in whatever conversation she forced, but memories flitted through his mind a thousand a second, stealing his voice.

  Julia seemed hurt when he rebuffed her questions and soon lapsed into her own silence. Now she was cradled in his arms, asleep, and he was lost in the memory of another nighttime ride.

  Cayne wondered if the years he’d languished without his past had taken the maddening edge off his grief or if his mind just hadn’t had enough time to absorb what had previously been buried.

  The sorrow he hadn’t understood just a few hours before was a hot knife in his memory now; maybe paler than it would have been, but far from dull.

  Julia stirred, and Cayne’s confusion grew. The feelings he had for her mirrored his feelings for the other, and the only thing he knew for sure was that he had to destroy Samyaza.

  If anything, the drive was stronger now that he knew what he had to avenge. And what he had to protect. He listened to Julia's heartbeat and swore he wouldn’t fail a second time.

  “Swallow a bug?”

  Despite all his instincts, Cayne almost dropped her. Julia seemed unaware as she gazed up at him, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Sorry. You just look...like you swallowed a bug.”

  Cayne shook his head. Her caring voice sliced through the dizzying misery of his memories. It comforted and repelled him. He didn’t deserve it.

  She sighed. “You don’t have to carry me anymore. I can get on your back.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Look, Cayne, just put me up.”

  “I don’t mind carrying you a bit longer.”

  Julia’s mouth hung open.

  “What?”

  “Your voice. It sounds...I don’t know, different. Like, Irish or something.”

  “Scottish.”

  “That doesn’t...” He could see the wheels turning. Just another moment and— “Oh. Oh my God!”

  He nodded, looking out at the black sky, and she didn’t say anything more. He knew he should keep his mouth shut; anguish was necessarily private, and his could easily boil over if he wasn’t careful. But a moment later her discontent was so obvious that he said, “I remember some things. For instance, I was born in Scotland.”

  The biting breeze danced with her glossy hair; she shifted in his arms, her movements oddly jerky. “I really want to get on your back now.”

  Cayne was still
lost somewhere between the real and the memory, and holding her, he was ashamed to admit, eased the discomfort. But he slowed so she could move.

  For several minutes she said nothing. Then: “How?”

  He turned so she could hear him over the wind. “Something Samyaza said… freed my memories.”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  Cayne closed his eyes. “When I was ready.”

  She didn’t speak until a cloud covered the moon, and then softly, she said, “I understand. About needing space.”

  Julia laid her head on his back, and he flew for half an hour longer, trying with no success to organize his mind. He wouldn’t go to pieces. But he could, if he let himself, get close.

  Julia stirred, and for a moment Cayne ached to tell her everything. She should know he wasn’t the person he’d been hours before. That she shouldn’t give herself to him in sleep. His memories had clarified everything, adding texture and lines to the blank figure he’d been, making him dark.

  And dark he had always been.

  *

  Her name was written in place of the ‘Hollywood’ sign. It was large and red and very real under the glow of the spotlight that shone across the landscape, slicing the blue night in two. Julia couldn’t see from where the light came; it was a bright line stretching over the curve in the earth.

  There were other words—smaller versions of the sign—underneath her name, but they were much smaller, and, sitting cross-legged several miles away, Julia couldn't make them out.

  Demons and Nephilim circled the moon, high over the hillside mansion, looking down over the battle scene below. Rocketing through the night sky, they dove in pairs, impossibly in sync, and Julia’s heart beat faster because she was sure that they would not right themselves, that they would crumble into the earth in twin piles of bone and blood.

  But at the last second, the demon and the half-demon pulled up, flapped their great wings, and floated to join the rest. The demon hit the Nephilim, and a battle broke out there as well.

  Julia was on the ground now, searching for Cayne in every room of the house, but she couldn’t find him anywhere.

  Sighing, she started climbing stairs to reach the top floor. There was something important up there. When she climbed the last stair, she found herself face to face with a beautiful man. He reached out his hand and squeezed her throat.