Chloe's Guardian (The Nephilim Redemption Series Book 1)
Read Chloe's Guardian (The Nephilim Redemption Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Cheri Gillard
Chloe’s Guardian
by Cheri Gillard
Chloe’s Guardian
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright 2014 Cheri Gillard
Cover Design by Shelley Schadowsky
ISBN for the EPUB format: 9781311214058
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A Note to Readers
About Suicide
Dear Reader:
This is a work of fiction. Suicide is depicted within the story. The intent of this author is not to minimize the seriousness or tragedy of suicide. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among pre-teen to college-age youths. If you are thinking about suicide, please tell someone you trust about your feelings. Make an appointment with your family doctor, or talk to your school counselor or teacher. If you don’t feel that the people around you are able to support you, there are groups of caring people who can and who want to come alongside you. Search online to quickly find phone numbers and organizations that are in place and waiting to help you. You don’t have to be alone.
Click on this link—
The Jason Foundation
—or this one—
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
—if you want some help getting started finding help.
Sincerely,
Cheri Gillard
For my family, who listened to chapters around the fire pit on cool evenings. Who listened again during midterms or finals week. And during jet lag after returning from studying abroad. And after already hearing it three times before.
“And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ ”
From the Sixth Book of Enoch
Oh God, this is going to hurt.
She reminded herself that it would only last a second, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, trying to make her mind as empty as the open sky in front of her. At the bottom of the cliff the sea rocked back and forth, churning and releasing the fishy brine odor, even all the way up to where Chloe teetered. Her fidgeting knocked loose a rock. It dropped down, down, until it shattered against the rocky shore.
The boulders at the bottom were sharp and rigid. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to look at them. But with her eyes closed, Todd invaded her thoughts. And he brought Rebecca with him, embracing her in the same way as when Chloe had walked in on them.
She forced her eyes open, made them stare ahead.
The pain would end when she was dead. Then she’d stop seeing them together.
The voice in her head prodded
Jump. It will be better.
The voice stole her hope. Nothing was left. She lifted her face toward the sky to keep from looking down. The breeze chilled the tears on her cheeks. It hurt. Living hurt.
After one more deep breath, she decided. A bird cawed overhead. She focused on it. Without taking her eyes away from its soaring form, she leaned forward and let her body fall into the sky.
***
Icy rain bit into his face and woke him up. Acrid smoke, tinged with pitch, clogged his nose. The sounds around him made no sense.
Where am I? What’s happened?
For one thing, he lay spread out on his back, a vulnerable position he must correct. His legs were lead, refusing to move. A deep pain burned in his back. He wished to get up, to protect his neck, to take a defensive stance. But as much as he willed it, his body wouldn’t respond. He tried to move again but the only thing he could muster was a horrid sound that seeped from his throat. Someone rushed to his side.
“He is coming ’round,” a deep Scottish voice said, the words finally becoming clear.
“Angus, come over here. He is awakening,” another said.
Though blurry, a blond man stooped over Horatius. A stormy black sky backed him and a torch lit his face. Sleet cut at Horatius’ eyes, making it impossible to open them for more than seconds at a time. He tried to reach for the man, to get a hand up off the ground, but his arm rebelled against his thoughts.
The blond man’s soaking hair dripped rain into Horatius’ eyes. Horatius blinked to clear away the water.
Help me. Please, help me get up.
A hard kick sank into his flank. The impact blotted out the roar of the weather. His breath locked in his lungs and he shuddered to inhale again. The air snagged on his throat. Pain blocked his thoughts. He tried to clear his mind, to remember what he had to do.
The first voice spoke again. “I told you we should have tied him up good afore.” Contempt permeated the man’s words.
How bad was it this time? Would anyone help him? What
had
happened anyway? The memory was blank.
His eyes burned, swollen, and watery. He forced them to stay open, to look at the face over him. The torchlight sputtered in the rain. Its illumination snapped across the shadows of the man’s sharp features.
“Good,” the man said. “I want him awake. Draw him up.” He flipped back his heavy, sodden hair. “There, hang him there.”
Hands grabbed Horatius and dragged him.
Gawwh!
Agony shot through his back when they raked him across the rocky ground. He tried to break free but his legs were useless and his arms barely better.
What happened? Why can’t I move?
Someone coiled a coarse rope around his neck while his arms dangled limp at his sides. They would not respond.
Think!
His brain would not clear. He couldn’t pull his thoughts together to make a plan.
Was it just the whiskey I drank? Was it poisoned?
Something was horribly wrong. These were mere men. He shouldn’t be vulnerable to their feeble assaults.
The noose tightened and lifted him—first his head, then his shoulders—from the ground. He jerked higher and higher with each tug on the rope. The force crushed his neck, squeezing pressure into his head. His eyes bulged, opening them to his surroundings.
Lightning flashed and castle turrets pulsed in the ominous sky. Four men had the other end of the rope and hauled together as they counted off. The rope hung over a stone archway in a castle wall. The man with stringy, yellow hair stood near Horatius as his feet left the ground.
The man’s mouth moved but Horatius couldn’t hear him over the roar in his head. The strain would surely burst his popping eyes any second. His vision darkened. His lungs ached for air.
Agony
. The pressure in his head! He had to get down. The man reached up to Horatius and yanked a knife from his spine. Searing pain shot through his back like a jolt of lightning and his body convulsed with one bone-breaking spasm.
The rope loosened and he crumpled to the ground, limbs flung wide and useless. Air wheezed through his crushed throat as his lungs fought to expand. The blood receded from his face, the roar faded, the strain in his eyes eased.
The blond man appeared above him again and bent down. A torch flickered yellow in his close, probing eyes. And Horatius saw. Terror eclipsed his pain.
The man was possessed.
Satarel
. The demon. His father. His father who was bent on destroying him. Horatius had to look away, but he was paralyzed. He could not avoid being seen, being detected.
But what does it matter? Satarel has already found me.
The man yelled over his shoulder in a voice that held the echo of Satarel. “Seamus, go get the hatchet. I will relish taking his head now.”
Sudden footsteps approached quickly, slapping through wet muddy puddles.
“MacKay, what goes here?”
Will Keith
. The name came to him. Will’s voice took on a ferocity all at once. “God’s teeth, what have you done, MacKay?” Keith splashed to Horatius’ side and wrestled with the corkscrew of rope to loosen it from around his neck.
“Horace, ’tis I, William. Can you hear me? Can you speak?”
Horatius tried to answer, but a sole rasp escaped his throat.
William was suddenly lifted away, pulled off his feet by men on either side. He roared with indignation. “Unhand me, you fools!
I
am laird here. MacKay, stop this now or your life is forfeit.”
“You are in no position to threaten me, Keith,” Angus MacKay shouted over the rain, again in his own voice. “Mayhap I will take this castle from you. I will be laird of Dunnottar. And I will not show such favoritism as you did for this mongrel. He stole me betrothed. I will give the justice that you did not.”
A new man sauntered over, carrying a sword, swinging it around casually in circles. “Forget Seamus and the hatchet, boy,” he said to MacKay. “Use my weapon.” Horatius knew him. From long ago. And recently. His stature towered over the one called Angus MacKay, just as Horatius would have, could he stand.
It’s coming back. Bits and pieces
. In the midst of the confusion, the pain, the frustration, something started to return.
Panahasi
.
My brother. Of course.
Now he remembered. He had to get up before Panahasi removed his head, or it would be his extinction, his complete and utter annihilation.
Other fragments of memory flashed as he fought to organize his thoughts, to remember. A woman’s face, her body, a tryst, whiskey. They all swam into his thoughts and clogged his understanding. The recollections were hard to sort, difficult to piece together.
I should do something. What am I supposed to do?
“You may not let me be the one to behead him, Father,” Panahasi shouted into the sky, “but it does not mean I cannot do this!” Two-handed, he lifted a second sword high and plunged it down, ramming it through Horatius’ chest.
Flesh tore, bone snapped. Panahasi disappeared and bright colors flared through his vision. The sword ripped back out. His lifeblood sprayed from the gape, chasing the blade. Breath wouldn’t come, his chest couldn’t move.
“Finish it, Father,” Panahasi yelled at MacKay. “Time is wasting.” Panahasi knocked his blood-covered weapon against MacKay’s sword, who jumped back as though threatened. Satarel had lost control for a moment. Panahasi laughed. “Jumpy now? Are you losing your nerve? Do not fight it, boy. Think of your fury. He took your woman. Give yourself over to the power.”
MacKay grew angrier, giving Satarel more leverage. He gripped the hilt with determination. He looked down at Horatius and his eyes steeled against him. MacKay’s own countenance disappeared, replaced by evil.
“You are a fool to think you can win redemption,” Satarel said through MacKay’s voice. “
They
threw
me
out. Rejected me outright.
They
will not let you in
—
a half breed.”
Darkness tunneled Horatius’ sight, blending with the night’s shadows. He couldn’t keep listening. His father’s words faded. They became muffled and distant. His existence began to collapse through the gaping hole in his chest.
“
Horatius
.” Then he heard it a second time. “
Horatius
.” The plural voice spoke into his essence. It was music. It was beauty. Everything hopeful and loving.
They
had spoken, pulling him out of his stupor just enough.
His memory came. He’d left his father’s realm to seek redemption. Though he’d always failed, he was determined to change, to please
They
.
I have to transfigure!
Plasma spurted into his lungs.
Now or I won’t make it.
His eyes went blind.
Father will decapitate me.
Cells began to shut down.
I
have
to transfigure.
His heart sputtered. It missed a beat. Then another.
Did he have the strength? Could he do it? If
They
had bothered intervening, he must have a chance. A chance for redemption.
My father
must
be wrong about me.
He gathered every ounce of will that his mangled body could muster and concentrated. Air gurgled through the blood in his throat. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus enough. The fluids were drowning him. His heart was failing.
MacKay screamed and raised the sword. The arc of the swing hit its apex and the blade dropped downward.
Horatius strained beneath the pain, the suffocation, the agony.
Somewhere beyond, he grabbed hold of a tiny thought, an extended hope. He held on for dear life, just for that split second.
And he transfigured.
