Page 54 of Revelations

A voice in her head screamed. “You know how. You know why. It’s your fault.”

The healing demon had exacted its payment from them. To save Thomas, many more had died…horrifically.

Kael had wrought absolute destruction again, all with the appearance of saving a single life. Deep down she knew that he’d thought he was doing itforher. That made it her fault. Damn him!

On the edge of her consciousness, she heard the front door bang open and footsteps running toward the back of the apartment, stopping just outside of the door. Lots of loud cursing followed, in another language. Normally, she would’ve known exactly what was said. Now, it was all jumbled babble; a giant black abyss of sorrow blocked out everything else in her mind. Even when warm, strong arms wrapped around her from behind and gently pulled her out of the room, Greylyn felt nothing.

Sometime later, a hot cup of tea was pressed into her hands, its warmth failed to permeate the numbness that claimed her body. Jasper’s calming voice filtered in and out of her mind. Like someone calling to her from a vast distance, she recognized that he was trying to determine if she was okay, as well as what had happened. But dark, negative energies swirled around her, in her, through her, cutting her off from the world. No light, no comfort, no compassion could trespass.

How could she have allowed this to happen? She’d let Kael summon the demon. It had all happened so quickly. She had been in shock. Still, she had known that it was wrong. To save Thomas, she would have gladly sacrificed herself, but this? Now Sofia and seven other innocents lay dead of an ancient plague. The price had been steep, very steep.

Thomas would be devastated when he realized that his salvation had resulted in so many deaths. His heart was so gentle and loving. He would never have condoned allowing others to pay the price for his life.

Vaguely, voices reached the place in her mind where she had hidden, even if momentarily.

“Come back to us, darling,” Jasper’s rough baritone resounded in her head.

A large, callused hand grasped her own as someone took the now cool teacup from her. The pitch-black darkness faded to a smoky haze as the outline of her fellow guardian’s tall, broad form became clearer, like a fuzzy movie coming into focus.

“There you are. Gave us quite a scare.” His face broke out in a huge grin, but Greylyn saw the way his jaw remained clenched and the creases between his eyebrows—his tension was not convincingly concealed.

Greylyn croaked out, “I’m fine,” in a voice she no longer recognized as her own.

The warmth emanating from his hand had spread to the rest of her body as if she were waking from a hypothermic coma. Turning in the direction of the back workroom, words failed her as her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Jasper must have instinctively known what her thoughts were as he quickly answered the unasked question. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry about anything.”

Her head whipped back around, eyes blazing. “Them. Not ‘it’. Take care of them.” With that, tears brimmed over and streamed rivulets down her face. How she would love to bask in the nothingness again. The pain…

Softly, he corrected himself. “Them. I will take care of them, now. Thomas, stay with her.” For a moment longer, he cradled her in his arms, before planting a kiss on the top of her forehead.

As Jasper worked to clean up the pile of bodies in the back with dignity, Thomas held Greylyn against his broad chest and rocked her like a small child. She had witnessed much worse carnage before. It had never struck this close to home. She could deal with slayed strangers in battle more easily. Not that her heart was hardened. Every death sliced her internally, but this? This was different. She knew—had known—those people.

Sofia! Oh, Sofia!

Greylyn did not understand how she could deal with the guilt of her death, for she blamed herself. She’d taken off to see the oracle and had allowed Thomas to come along, putting him in mortal danger. She’d allowed a familiarity to build between herself and Kael—a dark guardian, a minion of Hell. When he had summoned a demon to save Thomas, she’d stood by helplessly.

No, not helplessly. She could have stopped him, but she had chosen not to. One life saved with a steep price paid.

***

Jasper worked quickly and quietly while Greylyn remained stoic on the worn sofa. Even Thomas did not dare speak a word to break the reverence of the moment. A normal person could have walked in and would never have imagined what Jasper was doing in the back workroom—performing last rites and cleaning up the bodies for burial later that night under the cover of darkness.

The cleansing was not just a physical washing away of the blood and bodily fluids. It was also a spiritual cleansing—a requiem—so that their souls would be released from their respective reapers to the place they were ordained to go. Greylyn prayed that his endeavors on their behalf would free them from any hold Kael’s demon might have had on them.

Hours and a shower later, Jasper came back in the living room. His wet ebony hair glistened in the low lamplight. He kneeled beside her, eye to eye. “I’ve done what I can. Tonight, I’ll take care of the rest.”

The rest, Greylyn knew, would be a mass grave somewhere in the woods, with the bodies burned beyond recognition. At least, that was how they’d done it a couple of centuries earlier to avoid contamination and spread of the disease, and to avoid having to answer to authorities as to how the Black Death had returned in the heart of the nation’s capital. It would be deemed a biological terror attack. The public would panic. The government would create another worthless bureaucracy to fight something that they knew nothing about.

Oh my God! I don’t even know their families, to contact them and let them know their loved ones have passed away.

Did Sofia have any family left? Greylyn did not believe so. There were no pictures plastered on the walls or the refrigerator of smiling people. No postcards to “Dear Grammy.” No, Sofia’s colleagues in her work, they were her family. But surely, they had family of their own.

Jasper cupped her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. She sensed him telepathically assessing her physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual states; evaluating her chakras to determine how deep the damage had gone; and checking one by one to see if she were intact.

After a pause, he implored her, “So do you think you can tell me what happened? People don’t just die from the plague these days.”

Tremors marred her voice as she tried to explain everything; the oracle,the Loup-garous, Thomas being nearly killed. No, Thomas actually dying. Then, the part she most dreaded. How Kael had saved Thomas. Lastly, coming back here to find Sofia and her colleagues dead.

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