Grave Omen (Raina Kirkland Book 3) Read online

  “Don’t give me that puppy-dog look. It’s not my fault you’re in this mess. And you know I’m not talking about the baby. You had your chance to kill the priest and you didn’t. You let that pathetic elf put him to sleep. Cowardice elves!” he spat. “That man, that priest, deserved to die for the things he’d done. It was your recklessness, your weakness, that kept him alive, and now everyone you love will die.”

  “What, what are you talking about? What priest?” He gave me a cold look that said plainly that I was being stupid and I searched my memory, but I could not think of who he was referring to.

  He scoffed, evidently giving up on me. “You don’t remember the priest of Apollo, Raina; the priest that kept me from my wife while she was being murdered. You had Tristan put him to sleep instead of having him killed. That was stupid. The priest knew what you are, and he’s told the gods and they’re coming for you, and they don’t care who is in their way. I’ve seen them obliterate entire cities, Raina!” And with that he was gone and I was alone on the couch, holding my unborn child with both my arms wrapped around my stomach.

  “Goddess, help me.”

  HE’S BACK

  I RAN FROM the Bastion. I ran out into the night, the longest night of my life. I couldn’t wake Damon and tell him Thomas was gone. Raphael was right. It was my fault. Damon would have just killed the damn priest and been done with it. He was the sensible sort, practical to the bone. But I let Tristan deal with the priest instead and now I was paying for my soft fucking heart. But it wasn’t just me that was going to pay. Raphael said that the gods were coming for me, and everyone I loved: my family, Thomas, Damon, my unborn child. I couldn’t let them die for my sake. I couldn’t save the baby. It, he or she, had my blood running through it, the blood of a god, at least in part. Its fate was sealed as gravely as my own and I cried as I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, I just ran. Maybe if I got enough distance between me and everyone else, they would be spared.

  Miles from the Bastion I found myself standing before Apollo’s temple off of Pacific Avenue. It was a grand blue building with tall white columns. I’d taken Thomas there once because Apollo was his God. There was a great deal of chanting and scented smoke and strange dancing and lots of food. But Thomas didn’t seem to care for any of it. Maybe he thought going to church would bring him closer to his parents. I couldn’t pretend to know why he wanted to go or why he never asked to go back.

  I stood in front of it, ready to hand myself over to the gods. I closed my eyes and let the tears fall down my face. I was standing on a ledge, about to throw myself over to save everyone I loved. I exhaled and opened my eyes. Every second was precious as I climbed the steps. I replayed the best times of my life: friends, family, the first time I made love to a man, these past years I shared with Damon and Thomas. The life I lived wasn’t always easy but it was the hardships that made the happy times just that more special.

  There was a gust of wind, and my hair went mad for a moment, blocking my view and stopping me from taking that final step and opening the double doors.

  “Raina, stop!” someone shouted from the sidewalk.

  I turned, not thinking that the voice could be who it sounded like, but it was! It was Nick! He looked very different but it was Nick. His messy red hair was several shades darker for lack of sunlight, and several inches longer for lack of trimming. He had a full beard and mustache, just as deep a red. His big brown eyes peeked out behind the length of his auburn locks. But he was still wearing all black, like any respectable dark wizard and gothic vampire.

  “Nick!” I climbed back down the steps and threw my arms around him. He smelled the same, like cinnamon.

  He embraced me, “You know I prefer you call me Nil.”

  Nil was the name he gave himself after his infection and turn. It meant nothing because he felt like a nothing. He felt as though he should be dead and not undead. I didn’t like it. He was Nick and he would never be nothing to me.

  “You’ll always be my goofy big brother, Nick.”

  He smiled down at me, a devilish shit eating grin, but his grin faltered when he looked up at the building behind us. “I knew you would do something stupid once you figured it out.”

  “Figured it out?” He lost me somewhere…figured what out?

  “Not here,” he said.

  He tightened his grip on me and we were off, off into the air. I closed my eyes tight, cursing my phobia of heights as I lost the ground underneath my bare feet and wind rushed past us. I didn’t open my eyes until I felt solid earth at my feet again. It was soft grass, wet with what rain had fallen the previous day. Nick let go of me and surveyed the area. We were in the woods, some place away from the city. I didn’t recognize it.

  I was breathing heavy for a moment, just standing where he left me, but when I caught my breath I asked him again, “Figure what out?”

  He looked back at me from a distance. “You sent me an email describing a trend of large human sacrifices in this area. You didn’t call them that, but that’s what they were.”

  “Yes,” I said softly because that was what I’d found in Bailey’s memory of the event. Those men were sacrificing those people to someone or something called trivia.

  “Most gods demand some kind of sacrifice from the people who choose to worship them, whether it’s in the form of food, animals or money. Sacrifices of this magnitude, mass human life, can only mean one thing. Only one god still demands lives, human lives, from those who worship her and only a handful of people still worship her.”

  “Trivia,” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never heard of her.”

  He walked closer to me. “Most haven’t; most never will if they’re lucky. Trivia only does one thing. She has only one task. She is the police of the gods. She stops them from interfering with earth.”

  “Police? –I don’t understand what you’re doing here, Nick. It’s not safe for you to be in the country. You’re a wanted man. There is a mark out on your life. And the gods are after me. Raphael said they’ll kill our family. You need to leave and I need to get far away from everyone I love. Maybe if I hand myself over they’ll—”

  “Raina!” Nick interrupted. “Shut up and listen.” He looked angry, so I shut my mouth and listened. “I know that you feel guilty for all those lives. I know you feel you can’t live with that weight on your conscience, but believe me sister, handing yourself over to Trivia will not stop her from demanding sacrifices. Our family has been deemed tainted and her followers won’t stop until she lifts that decree.”

  I closed my eyes tight as my world became bigger and smaller all at once. The heat left my body and I shivered in fear. “Trivia? She’s the god that’s after me and she’s having all those people killed because of me?” All those people and all those animals were killed so violently because of me. And more will die. I felt dizzy just then and I fell to my hands and knees in the wet grass.

  “You didn’t know?” he asked, coming down to my level. I shook my head because I didn’t trust my voice to work for me at that moment. I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. I wanted to turn myself over to the gods more than ever. I couldn’t stand by and let even one person suffer for my sake, let alone hundreds.

  “Damn the Gods! Goddess Damn them! What right do they have?! There were children in those cages! Nick, kids! Fucking, Shit!” I screamed until my throat hurt. Maybe the gods would hear it and take me then.

  “Raina!” Nick yelled over my screams as they became wordless and scary. He came closer and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight to his chest, and let me scream out my pain, my heart ache and anger, so much fucking anger.

  “I know what you’re going through, Raina, the self-hate and suicidal thoughts,” he spoke softly against my hair. “You think the world would be better off without you. You question why you’re alive at all. Those people didn’t deserve to die, but they did because of you, and now your family and everyone you love will die because of yo
u.” I looked up at him with mean determined eyes. My heart was pounding hard with the fury that was coursing through my mind. “It’s not because of you, though. It took me a long time to accept that about myself, but bad people do what they do and we’re powerless to stop them. Years ago, I couldn’t stop Luke. I couldn’t stop him from doing what he did to you, Raina. And, I’m so sorry for that.”

  His words made my face grow softer somehow and suddenly the nightmare of being tortured by a vampire made sense. It wasn’t a dream so much as it was a memory. Luke was the vampire that was cutting me up in my childhood bedroom. He really did that to me when I was a young teenager. I knew Luke. At least, I met him once before. I barged in on him torturing Nick at Nick’s request a few days before Alistair sent Nick away to the Nascosto vampires of Canada to protect him from the law and himself. Thinking back, the injuries Luke inflicted on Nick were similar to those he’d given me. Was that Nick’s intent?

  “You let Luke torture you as a way of repenting for what he’d done to me, didn’t you?”

  Nick wiped tears from his eyes. “I thought he was my friend. I was a stupid kid and he saw that. I threw a party while mom was out of town with Fauna and I invited him, but he didn’t leave when everyone else did. He captured me with his gaze. He made me watch while he cut you up. You were crying for me to help you but I just stood there. You were crying so loudly for me and mom,” he was sobbing and all I could do was hold him and listen.

  “Mom came home and found us both passed out in your room. She blamed me, everyone did, and she kicked me out. When you woke up in the hospital you were like a zombie for months. You stared at the walls, unwilling or unable to talk or look at anybody. And then suddenly you were yourself again, but you had no memory of Luke or what happened to you and no one had the heart to tell you. They said you had suppressed it as a way of coping and I think I did a little, too. But the vampirism opened up parts of my memory I didn’t want to see. That was why I hated myself so much. That was why I wanted to die. Because I hurt the one person in the world I never wanted to hurt.”

  “You didn’t, Nick. You didn’t do those things to me. Luke did them and Mom let him get away with it because she would sooner believe the worst of you than the truth,” I said quietly, because that was all I could manage after screaming so much. I didn’t understand Mom’s actions then. How could she think Nick could do that to me? Why didn’t she believe him?

  “And you aren’t killing those people out there.”

  “Then we have to stop this. I’ve killed a lot of evil people, Nick, but what are we supposed to do about a fucking god?” I asked.

  He laughed then, a shallow tired thing. “We reason with it.”

  LEAH

  ANGELS ARE CREATURES of immense power who go by many names throughout the world. I’ve met only one myself. Aunt Fauna summoned Raziel of The Thrones Order to ask for help in healing Katie after Jed put her in the hospital. It was quite a spectacle. Raziel was a human figure made of pure energy with great arches of light encompassing him. His physical presence was scalding hot; even a circle of protection couldn’t keep the heat fully at bay. Fauna had to create a great freezing cyclone in her kitchen to cool the air. His voice was so loud that she had to construct a vacuum of silence lest he deafen us with the roar of it. So, when Nick told me that we were going to plead for my life and the life of my unborn child via an angel I knew what needed to be done. Nick was one of the cleverest wizards I knew. He could do everything by himself, but I wanted to help the only way I could.

  I stood up with a deep frown and downcast eyes. I wasn’t terribly skilled in witchcraft, but even a human could make a solid circle of protection. I bit down on my hand, puncturing the skin easily enough with my sharp vampire canines, and let the blood flow. The pain actually felt good or right or something. I didn’t spit out the hot blood that quickly filled my mouth either. I swallowed it down and told myself that it didn’t taste as amazing as it did. I put my hand out and slowly turned until the circle was closed (a solid ring of blood) and then I stepped out of it. I could already see the skin on my hand starting to knit itself back together.

  Nick picked himself up off the ground. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I looked up at him while I shook the blood from my hand. “I’m making a circle for the angel. Have you ever summoned one?”

  “Have you?”

  “No, but Fauna did a while ago.”

  “And she needed a circle? Are you sure it wasn’t a demon? They can look a lot alike since they’re essentially the same creature; just from different sides of the fence.” He grabbed my hand and looked at the fast fading wound. I took my hand back and wiped the remaining blood on my pajama pants.

  “It wasn’t a demon. It was Raziel. She asked him if the Throne could heal Katie.”

  “Then the circle makes sense. The Throne, they don’t usually make personal appearances on this planet. They weren’t created for it. Fauna forced an angel from his natural habitat to ask its favor…It’s kind of like your neighbor barging into your house and kidnapping you to ask you for a cup of sugar.”

  “That makes Fauna sound rude as hell. I’m surprised they healed Katie at all.”

  “If the Throng had any hand in Katie’s healing, it was no thanks to Fauna’s efforts. Forcing an angel into a circle is pretty messed up. She’s lucky Raziel didn’t kill her out of spite.”

  “How could she do such a thing?

  “She probably didn’t understand the full scope of her actions.”

  “You won’t be summoning an angel then?” I asked.

  “No, I’m going to call her and hope she answers. The angel I know is a messenger angel. It’s her job to talk to carbon based life forms and relay the information to the gods.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  “The Nascosto call her Leah. They call on her for guidance in all things. She’s like their patron angel. When Alistair delivered me to them, the first thing they did was put me alone in a room with her,” he said. “I was bound so that I couldn’t hurt myself. For hours she just talked to me. She explained the world in bigger terms and she eased my fears and regrets. My troubles were both small and unimportant in the greater scheme of things. What Luke did to us, I had no control over it. No control means no worries. That’s what Leah says. It’s her motto.” Nick’s eyes turned sad again. “But the people I killed in Darkness. That was my fault. I did what I thought I had to do at the time to protect you. I keep going over it again and again in my mind. If I’d been thinking clearly I would have just captured them with my vampire gaze, found your blood samples and wiped their memory clean, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t in a healthy place. I was unstable and suicidal and I killed them. I can never undo it. Leah says that all I can do to outweigh that wrong is as much good in the world as I can before my true death. But I can never rectify it. It’s a burden I’ll always have on my mind.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “So, this angel, how do we call her?”

  He stared out into the darkness for a moment, lost in thought it would seem, but eventually he looked down at me and nodded, as if agreeing that we should get the ball rolling. “We need to get undressed.”

  When we were both naked he told me to lie down on the grass. The nakedness I understood. It’s just the way witches praise gods. It’s respectful; not that I was feeling particularly chummy toward them in that moment. But I didn’t question it. I did question, however, having my naked backside on the cold wet grass. Nick said that by lying down, I was showing the angel that my intentions were entirely harmless. I didn’t like it, but I lay down and stared up at the starry sky through the leafless branches of looming trees.

  Standing over me, Nick took out his wand and pointed it up in the air. “There are no wizarding vampires among the Nascosto, so when they need to get Leah’s attention there’s this whole song and dance they have to perform. But me, I just have to flick a stick.” He tapped his wand with his pointer finger
and a brilliant light shot up into the night’s sky. A second later a woman was standing beside him. She was looking down at me; a brilliant, glowing bronze statue-like woman with long hair of white. Despite her formidable appearance she exuded loving kindness. Not at all like Raziel. He seemed harshly judgmental, though, in hindsight I suppose he had a reason to be.

  “Raina,” she said, and her voice was smooth and comforting, like a warm blanket on a cold night. She tilted her head, an oddly human gesture. “Are you hurt?” she asked. I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I just looked up at her, admiring her beauty. Physically she was impressive, a Roman statue from antiquity. And yet, everything about her was unimposing and friendly. Without a word she bent down to me and put her hand on my chest. Her skin was warm bordering on hot, but it wasn’t the scorching heat Raziel gave off or the electric heat that Raphael created around him. She just held her hand there for a time and then stood back up. “No, your body is healthy, and so is your child.” She turned to Nick. “Nil, why did you call me?”

  “We need your help, Leah,” said Nick. “Trivia is hunting my sister.”

  “I don’t know what I can do for you. The heavens are in upheaval. There’s talk of civil war among the gods and there’s a demigoddess in the west. Your entire family will be eradicated in order to guarantee no further contamination. She may even see fit to cleanse this whole region.”

  I gasped as I stood up and looked at Nick. No matter what, the family was on Trivia’s hit list. And what was a region to a god? Was she talking about Tacoma, Pierce County or Washington State?

  “That’s why we need you to talk to Trivia,” said Nick.

  “Nil, you know I care for you, but there is no changing Trivia’s mind. She is as likely to ignore this infraction as she is to pardon the whole host of hell. I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I can’t.”